Healthy Relationships and the Dark Night of the Soul (Part 1)

Hey, Ricardo Pereira here.

Today's podcast is brought to you by your revival mentor and artist from the Dark Night project on Patreon. When you sign up for the Dark Night monthly oxygen tank there on my Patreon page, you will have exclusive access to specifically designed support and strategic guidance for those going through a dark night of the soul. No one can do it for you, and we cannot do it alone as well. Now let's get down into our episode of today.

Good afternoon, good morning, or good evening, wherever and whenever you are, dear Dark Knight Alchemist. My name is Ricardo Pereira. I am your revival mentor and artist from the Dark Knight. And on today's episode here, I will be sharing why it is important for you to understand the relationship between healthy relationship stages and your own relationship with yourself. In other words, how to use the dark night of the soul to more powerfully develop your own connection with self, your own own intrapersonal relationship and the relationship with what I would call, and many call, the relationship with your authentic self. And the reason why I'm bringing today this main topic of relationships, including some of the stages of healthy relationships and how to develop interpersonal healthy relationships, including a romantic one, is because most people are not yet educated about how to create healthy relationships in their lives. And because they're not able to do so, they are still perpetuating trauma, including you if you're going through a dark night of the soul, because of not being able to fine-tune how you do relationships. And as Dr. Harville Hendrix says, one of the international relationship experts I study from, We are born in relationship. We are wounded in relationship. And we can be healed in relationship. Now, I want to ask you that for a few seconds, you think about some of the most hurtful moments, memories, or episodes in your life, including as a little boy or a little girl. And if you think about some of those moments, and the reason why I'm asking you to, to bring some of those memories is because you may have realized that one of the things that the dark night is assisting you in a very challenging, in a very deeply, extremely challenging way is for you to heal many of the original wounds. And by original wounds, I mean The wounds that we felt as little boys or girls that come up in our adult life, and we may call them trauma. Because from my own learning and experience, trauma, those hurtful moments that made a shift, including actually neurologically and in our own nervous system, there is a lot and a lot more of evidence for that. Are one of the reasons why we have challenges, or a lot of the challenges in our adult life, and specifically a lot of the material, the unconscious material, the unconscious content that comes up during a dark night of the soul. And Doing my best to position myself here so you see my face. I'm in sunny Brazil, so the sun is really hot here, so a little bit of shadow is quite good. And I know myself that when I went through my own dark night of the soul that lasted almost 10 years, I really had to have clarity about what my main lessons were, the main lessons that were coming up for me to not only learn but actually heal those childhood wounds. So I'm gonna bring it back then to the relationship piece, and you may have noticed, I mean, I am noticing more and more for sure that we are always in some shape or form of relationship. We're in relationship with our bodies, with a relationship with our emotions. We are in relationship with our own thoughts, the meaning we give them, how we are able to generate it consciously and unconsciously. In relationship with nature, in relationship with Earth, with Mother Earth. With animals, in relationship with the cosmos, and in a very clear way, you may have noticed that we are surrounded by human beings, freaking human beings, all the time, or not all the time, but most of the time. That's what kind of this planet is made up of. Human beings. And I want to really bring this idea with you, and that idea is if we are indeed always, or let's call it most of the time, but I would definitely for that one, I would kind of use an always in relationship with something, our atoms, our molecules, our nervous system, other people, and ourselves, ourselves, what we put in our bodies, food we eat, plants we use in either medicinal purposes or for bringing more relaxation like a tea or some other stronger plant or for healing purposes, vitamins, whatever that is. If we are indeed always in some shape or form of relationship, wouldn't it be intelligent to learn how to have healthier and healthier relationships? Just an idea. And the reason why I'm bringing this with so much passion and love for the topic is because I have realized that one, most people do not have a clue about how to have actually healthy relationships, including romantic ones or with their family, co-workers, partners, friends, whatever. And second, that was one of the main ingredients to really shift my life in a really palpable way. And I'll get into what are some of the distinctions that make a healthy relationship from a not healthy or dysfunctional relationship. I'll talk a little bit about the different stages of relationship, but most of all, I'll really bring, or I will do my best to bring, the connection, the parallel between your ability to nurture and create healthy relationships in your life with most people around you and the connection, the relationship with your own self. Because what I see as the dark night— again, you may have heard my last episode. If you haven't, I shared there about quite a powerful and healing meaning for the dark side. That made all the difference for me to keep going, keep learning, keep discovering until I let its full course run out. Just lost a little bit my track here. Apologize for that. Let me just get back. And that happens sometimes, and that's even a cool thing that happened. I know that one of the wounds that I healed quite a lot already was the fear of being in communication with someone or public speaking and all of a sudden not knowing what I would say next. And I understand a big part of where that came from, including as a little boy being at school and being shamed or humiliated while going to the front of the room to the blackboard doing some kind of shitty exercises, those the ones that they do at school and perhaps not knowing, but I definitely had some memories of being kind of criticized or shamed or laughed at. So for a lot of time, I would get into that stage sometimes of paralysis, and that was basically getting back to that to that trauma, to that wound. And I had to understand a little bit about it, but basically learn how to do it differently. So for me, a lot of cool stuff for that matter came from learning how to be a professional clown. If you don't know yet, or if you haven't noticed, I am a professional clown as well. But the kind of clown that I learned, that I was trained in, is not the kind of circus clown that does, that throws stuff in the air and does a lot of cool stuff as well. No, but that's not the one. It's a different kind of one. It's the kind of clown that learns how to be on stage as fully present as he can possibly be, as fully transparent and honest with his own emotions, with his own feelings, thoughts. Like if I go on stage and I'm feeling scared because of some reason or insecure, I may look kind of scared and I may go, "I'll probably shit my pants in a few seconds." And when people get that that's honest, that that's true for me in that moment, Usually a lot of them will just laugh, and the laughter is a sign of the connection for me as a clown on stage, or even not as a clown, just, but just regularly being on stage, of when someone really gets that you're being honest, that you're being transparent. And getting back to healthy relationships and the connection of the relationship with self. One of the things that I learned from the start back in 2010 is that a healthy relationship is one that is for mutual healing and for mutual growth. What that means is that when I'm in relationship with anyone, as long as I'm making my choice to be in relationship with that person, and sometimes even for a few seconds with some stranger on the street. My main intention is healing and growing, mutual healing and growing. Now, I have a lot of evidence and reasons coming from experience and theoretical learning as well that that's what relationships are actually doing unconsciously all the time, all the time. And that is bringing the greatest potential for individual and for mutual healing and growth. And sometimes I just look in nature to give this analogy. And I asked someone really close recently, Have you noticed in nature that if you look at a tree, at a plant, kind of the most— I was gonna say something which is really shitty, which is not as evolved consciousness is like a tree or plant, but that's just plain bullshit. I have no idea about that, and I think that they're pretty fucking evolved for me. Sometimes they look a lot more evolved than us. But okay, we have our own ways. That's not the thing here right now. But when you look at a tree, at a plant, when you look at an animal, any kind of animal, have you noticed that they seem to, at their core level, always doing one of these two, which is either growing, whatever growth is happening for that being, for that plant, for that animal, or healing if there's something happening like a physical wound, or if— and you can see it everywhere as well, which is different kinds of wounds. Have you noticed that there most of the times doing one of these two things. Of course, there's a lot of ways of expressing that, but at the core, I see that we're always doing that. And when I learned that relationships are for mutual healing and growth, I started paying more attention. But there's the distinction between doing that Consciously and unconsciously. So doing it consciously means that you are open now to the idea and possibility that healthy relationships, or even relationships, are always, or most of the times, but I would say always, bringing the utmost potential for individual and mutual healing and growth. So if that is happening, you can use it consciously, and then you get to ask yourself, okay, so how then can I really use that potential? And you can use that in your romantic relationship, in your relationship with self, with your family, with your friends, your co-workers, the people you serve, whoever that is. On the other hand though, most people I see doing it unconsciously, yet it is still playing on the background, on the backstage, under the hood of relationships dynamics and what I see, believe, and feel and have many times observed is the main intention for a relationship, which is mutual healing and growing. It is always still happening, but it happens in a way that brings mostly hurt. And now getting back to the part where I lost track and then went on a sidetrack. But actually, I have reasons to believe it was valuable for the topic. When I was in my own dark night of the soul, a lot of the work that I had to do, a lot of my dedication, my main intentions, and even more commitment was about developing healthier relationships. With myself first and foremost, with my parents, with whom I stayed for around 8 years from those 10 years of my dark night. 8 of those 10 years I stayed living in their home that they generously and very kindly opened up for me. And when I went back to live with them, that was part of my fucking personal— and yeah, my freaking personal hell was living with them. But why was that happening also to me? Why do I say that that was part of my private hell during the dark night? And that was because I was very much more aware about my childhood, childhood wounds, and I was able to see all the dysfunction, all the unhealthy dynamics that were happening between my parents, all the unhealthy relationship or dynamics, again, dysfunctional ones that they were trying to kind of keep perpetuating with me. And I also got to see in a fucking big magnified glass all the dysfunctional behaviors that I myself was still perpetuating. And I got to realize, shit, I'm doing most of this stuff I was just repeating what my upbringing taught me. So that's why I say, and I have been bringing this potential, this opportunity, but more than that, this essential ingredient if you're going through a dark night of the soul, Which is, it is crucial, it is absolutely vital that you learn how to create healthy relationships with your life. And that is the way I experience, and from what I observe in others around me, including people that are closer going through a dark night that I also serve, and do my best to support is that they haven't learned yet how to have those healthy relationships. And so the same childhood wounds are coming up, but they're not getting, or they're not really using yet the greatest opportunity to use relationships to heal those wounds. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the different stages of relationships, and then I'll connect to the relationship with yourself and what I saw happened with me during my own dark night in the development of relationship with my authentic self or myself, whatever we may want to call it. These are just words. Ah.

Hey, Ricardo Pereira again here, reminding you that today's podcast was brought to you by your revival mentor and artist from the Dark Night project on Patreon. When you sign up for the Dark Night monthly oxygen tank there on my Patreon page, you will have exclusive access to specifically designed support and strategic guidance for those going through a dark night of the soul. With the monthly Dark Night oxygen tank, you will be able to enhance your healing, bring more comfort and more powerfully learn your dark night lessons so that you can let the dark night run its complete course and lead you to a new chapter in your life where you feel more connected and on purpose than ever before with yourself, your dreams, and your authentic expression. We need your gifts and your talents in the world, and you do deserve yourself the opportunity to to live a life more and more connected to your own purpose. You deserve to feel supported in an interactive community of other like-minded Dark Night Alchemists that are learning, just like you, how to bring more comfort, clarity, and enhance their own healing during the Dark Night while being supported and guided by those who've been there, including myself. No one can do it for you, And we cannot do it alone as well. Please head now to patreon.com/darknightmentor. That is patreon.com/darknightmentor and click on the Dark Knight Oxygen Tank pledge to find out the details about how you can enhance your healing and what you'll get as part of the monthly guided support system.

All right, so initially I learned this from my former mentor Dov Baron, who I was immersed and close to as my mentor, and actually one of the mentors that had the most powerful impact in me, in basically assisting me in kind of being reborn in such a way. And I know that can be used as a cliché word, but that was actually quite it. I just cannot not be honest about it. I mean, when I went to Canada, Vancouver, and I immersed myself for around 2 years and I sold my house, my car, I had just gone out of a romantic relationship that lasted 13 years and I realized that we weren't going on common paths, on similar paths, or on parallel paths, and I didn't know how to do better back then as well. So we just moved on separate paths, and I basically sold everything I had to sponsor one of the greatest adventures in my life, which was living in Canada. I'm originally from Portugal, even though I'm living in beautiful Brazil. Was going to Canada for 2 years and immersing myself in the teachings and seminars with my former mentor Dov Baron. And just to give you a clue about some of the stuff that I did, I, I, one of, just one of the many seminars that I did with him, immersive seminars, was called Deep Reclaiming Your Authentic Self. And that was a $10,000 Canadian investment for a 1-week seminar. Yeah, it had kind of a follow-up of 1 year of 1 monthly gathering for, for us to stay on track during that year. And that was really important as well because what we were going to do was to do during those 6 immersive days and then following that year the equivalent to around 15 years of hardcore therapy. And I'm not talking about the kind of therapy that you go into a couch and you sit opposite ends to the therapist and he goes, hmm, tell me what's on your mind. And very brightly leaves you room to babble and free associate for half an hour or 1 hour. No, not talking about that. That may have had its uses in the past, but that's not really what we're talking about here. We're talking about hardcore therapy, about getting into those childhood wounds and actually clearing them in such a powerful way that I was back into what I felt was my authentic self. I was back to the clarity about my purpose, my dreams, many of the gifts and talents that I had inside of me, and I had no freaking idea. I had just repressed them. But long story short, one of the other seminars I made with him, which is the relationship piece, I learned with him, and then later on with Dr. Harville Hendrix, which created the Mago Relationship Theory and therapy with, together with his wife Helen Hunt, is that there are these known stages for relationship. And long story short, I'll keep it to 3. I learned already a few versions that has 4, but we can keep it simple to 3. And that is on number 1, you have the romantic stage. And the romantic stage is basically when you meet someone, you feel drawn to them, you feel attracted to them, and you have all those neurochemicals which basically are— is your brain on drugs, and most of us have been there unless we've been living on top of a mountain and trying to have sex with our butt on top of grass. But if that's not the case, or any other more peculiar one, you've probably felt what I'm talking about, and that's kind of being high or in our own neurochemistry where we really want to be with that person all the time or most of the time where we want to have kind of juicy sex with them. And when you think about them for most of the day and you may be on the toilet, you may be having a shower, you may be working, you may be just waking up or falling asleep. And when you get into a romantic relationship and somehow there's this— you feel the romantic stage. And basically the romantic stage is nature's drugs, nature's— what's the word— anesthesia. I think that's the word, anesthesia. To get you to bond really quickly with someone that you've never met, but you get to really open up very, very quickly with them in a very short period of time. You get to trust them many times really quickly. You get to open up. You get to show parts of yourself. You get to really get curious and wanting to know more about the other person. Unless you're an asshole and you're just in it for sex. I'm kidding here. I've had relationships as well where— yeah, that is just not true. I'm kidding. I mean, I I was talking about a romantic relationship in all or many of its characteristics, but I've had relationships in the past as well where I was just intending to have a fun, sexy, sensual, sexual time with that person, but I was always upfront about it, either very explicitly or very Or yeah, I would probably say explicitly for most of the times I was really upfront. So, and I'm proud of that. So getting back on it, why is it called nature's anesthesia on the romantic stage? Because what draws us unconsciously, and this would need a whole class or a whole module to really dive deep into it, but that's part of Imago Theory. And what I learned with my mentor Dov Baron as well is that what draws us to a romantic partner is basically two things at an unconscious level. Not talking about consciously, it's just how our minds work and how we attract and we feel attracted by someone in ways that we don't even expect. I can explain it is two things: the positive characteristics of our caretakers and the most negative characteristics of our caretakers, primary caretakers. That can be our parents, our grandparents, or anyone that basically took care of us while we were children. So do not ask me exactly why, even though I have my own theories, but that's not the purpose of this sharing here. But what draws us to connection or feeling attracted to a romantic partner is these two things. And when you do some deeper work, and I've facilitated workshops for singles as well, and I've gone through my own education and training on those. And you have certain exercises that allow you to see some of your childhood frustrations, basically what you really needed as a little boy or a little girl but didn't get at a consistent level, and also was part of what created some of the traumas or some of the wounds. And when you also answer some of your deepest and most frequent frustrations with your partners, with your romantic past partners or your actual romantic partner right now, you go, shit, they're exactly the same. So that's why the opportunity or the potential, and I would say the main intention of any romantic relationship, most relationships, but I'll just focus on that very primary romantic one, is individual and mutual healing, is because you actually attract someone who is is the person that can most love you and assist you in your own healing, but also has the potential to more deeply wound you because they have exactly the set of characteristics that correspond to the positive traits and negative traits of your care takers. So during the dark night, I would say that the dark night, I've called it also a rite of passage, one of the most extreme rites of passage into adulthood, into emotional maturity from our own psyches that some of us go through And I believe that we've chosen that path as a soul, but that's just my belief. It's not the truth. And by the way, all of what I'm bringing here, it's not the truth. It's just my truth that comes from my own personal daily experience and from a lot of education and basically personal growth work on myself. First and foremost, and then assisting others, where I've literally invested beyond $100,000 as I went to Canada and then came back and then kept on having all of these powerful educational experiences. And so it's not the truth, it's just my truth. But still, when you learn from people and you realize that they're actually being quite a rather clear mirror when they communicate of what's happening in their lives. That it's coming from a place of congruency, from a place of integrity, not of, okay, do what I say, don't do what I do. No, that's bullshit. We're going there less and less. And what I'm empowering you, or what I'm supporting you and encouraging you is for you to actually be in your bloody integrity and congruency more and more. Because people get it, either consciously or unconsciously, if you're sharing something and you're coming from a place out of integrity. And that's one of the reasons, from my understanding and experience and observation of people actually getting into a dark night of the soul, it's because of being out of integrity with themselves, with their authentic selves or their soul's path, whatever we may want to call it. So the dark night of the soul for me, and we're getting to the end of this episode here, is second podcast episode, but on our next episode we'll follow up from there. Specifically on this topic of the relationship between the relationship stages and how to have interpersonal healthy relationships and why that is a must for you and a mirror for your own relationship with yourself. And I haven't learned any other way and I haven't seen it in others nor in myself. From my own experience and learning, you cannot be in healthy relationship with yourself if you're not also in healthy relationship with others more and more. And also from my own learning and experience, you cannot be in healthy relationship with others if you're also not enhancing your level of quality of relationship with yourself first and foremost. So wrapping up today on our episode here, the first stage of these three different stages— by the way, the second one is the conflict stage, and you may have a feeling about where I will then go next on our next episode and the relationship with the Dark Night of the Soul is that the Dark Night of the Soul is that you got really deeply in conflict, on the conflict stage in the relationship with yourself. So what happens when people get into conflict stage on the second stage, which by the way is not a optional. Everybody, and I mean everybody, at least from my observation, and I pay really careful attention because I'm passionate about this topic— doesn't mean that I'm right, doesn't mean that I'm just very curious and passionate about wanting to learn more and experience more and more about it— I would say everybody gets into the— or the common person, perhaps Jesus didn't, and I'm just fucking babbling now, so that doesn't matter. Everybody gets into the conflict stage. And what happens is that the conflict stage basically is when our brains start pumping those feel-good chemicals, which are part of the romantic stage. And from what I've learned in seminars on relationships, usually it takes 2 years tops, maximum, for people to get out of the romantic relationship and get into the conflict stage. And the conflict stage is actually when the relationship actually starts happening. Because now you are not relating with an illusion that comes from those temporary states of feel-good chemicals where you want to be with a person all the time and you can't bloody see that you have someone that reminds you of your caretakers or your parents. So you're just so on fucking feel-good drugs that you want to fuck all the time, you want to love, you're gonna be with them, you're gonna hold hands, you're gonna go out, and it just stops because that's part of what happens. So when you get into the conflict stage, you will then need to learn how to do healthy conflict and learn how to use the conflicts stage as the greatest opportunity for growth to happen, because the conflict stage is actually growth trying to happen. And the distinction is between you understanding or being now open that relationships are for mutual healing and growing and you actually learn how to do it consciously as well. And then for that to happen, it doesn't come out naturally. And by the way, most of the people— I read a statistic that it's around 97% of the human population, at least back in 2010 when I accessed this statistic— are stuck in the conflict stage. That means they do not go to the third one, which is called the conscious love stage or the interdependence stage. So I very much appreciate your curiosity, your willingness to learn how to do things differently. In order to enhance your own healing, your healing, also to more powerfully learn your lessons and let the dark night run its complete course so that you can open up a new chapter in your life where you feel more connected with yourself, with your authentic self, with your dreams, with your deepest desires, your genuine needs. And are able to also have more fun and comfort while doing it. Because for me, it's just not enough to get out of the dark night. For me, it's about getting back to a flow state of feeling more of the wonder and adventure in life. So again, thank you for your trust, for your openness, for your curiosity, and I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode where we will go deeper on the connection between interpersonal relationships, the different stages, including how to have healthy conflict with others and yourself. So until then, take care and enjoy the rest of your day as best as possible.

Hey, Ricardo Pereira again here reminding you that today's podcast was brought to you by your revival mentor and artist from the Dark Knight project on Patreon. When you sign up for the Dark Knight monthly oxygen tank there on my Patreon page, you will have exclusive access to specifically designed support and strategic guidance for those going through a dark night of the soul. With the monthly Dark Night Oxygen Tank, you will be able to enhance your healing, bring more comfort, and more powerfully learn your Dark Night lessons so that you can let the Dark Night run its complete course and lead you to a new chapter in your life where you feel more connected and on purpose than ever before with yourself, your dreams, and your authentic expression. We need your gifts and your talents in the world, and you do deserve yourself the opportunity to live a life more and more connected to your own purpose. You deserve to feel supported in an interactive community of other like-minded Dark Knight Alchemists. That are learning, just like you, how to bring more comfort, clarity, and enhance their own healing during the dark night while being supported and guided by those who've been there, including myself. No one can do it for you, and we cannot do it alone as well. Please head now to patreon.com/darknightmentor That is patreon.com/darknightmentor and click on the Dark Knight Oxygen Tank pledge to find out the details about how you can enhance your healing and what you'll get as part of the monthly guided support system.