How Emotional Safety Transforms Relationships

Often see with a lot of the female or couple clients I work with where they're all like leaders and high performers, but high functioning. But, um, until we work through the husband, the wife doesn't feel safe to open up. And so even if like I have clients that it's really the wife that hired me, and so I'm like, I gotta help you with your PTSD. Let's get to you. And then she's like, we'll try and get to her and nope. Uh, it won't go. And then I'll go right to the husband right afterwards. And boom, we'll work through him. And then now, I guess he's open and vulnerable and she feels his heart. And then now she's— it's like her nervous system says, okay, it's okay, I can come out and play.

Good to see you this morning.

Good to see you, Candice.

Oh my gosh, I— we were just saying how I don't even know where to begin or where I wanted to take this episode. And when I was talking to Eric downstairs, he's like, well, um, like, how are you approaching it? I was like, honestly, I just want to— like, what would I want to listen to? Like, what would I find important? And like, the science and stuff is really interesting, but I think that there's like so many other podcasts that get like really technical. And what for me is intriguing is like the personal and like the deep and the intimate. And so I think that's kind of where I want to go with it. But I like truly think, and this is what we said last night, or what I said last night, was I had this knowing that everything happens for a reason. And I told— see, I'm already getting emotional. And I was like, I'm definitely gonna be crying so much in this episode.

I'm Mike Zeller and you are watching Chatting with Candace.

The way that we had met is I was supposed to do a medicine journey and the theme of it was love and it was supposed to be MDMA and it just would— it turned into a shit show, honestly. And it ended up with me leaving and me and my husband kind of like getting really, really getting into it and not seeing things the same way. Like, he has a really great experience at this this particular location and with this facilitator, I see something very different. And I chose to listen to myself. And normally I would self-doubt and I would say like, well, maybe I'm broken and just listen to Eric, but like begrudgingly, not because like I trust him or I want him to lead me. It was just like more of a disbelief in myself. And I think if I had done my pattern, which was that, I never would have met you. And what I said last night was like truly, I don't think anyone— I don't think anyone would have, like, had me have that breakthrough that you did. Um, so just thank you so very much.

Yeah, I've found, you know, the first thing that you need for that type of deep sacred work— because we work through, like, core wounds and core traumas for you both, and we got there really fast, right? You know, first time physically meeting you both in person The first aspect is a really deep sense of safety. And if you don't have that sense of safety, the feminine can't relax and the masculine can't relax in. And I've found, for whatever reason, I often can create that sense of masculine safety that creates this container for both energies to surrender in. And— but you got to have that.

Yeah. Yeah, so that's an excellent point. Um, every facilitator has like their own vibration and like way of doing things. How would you describe the divine masculine? Because I think, I think so many people are getting it wrong.

Yeah.

So like, what is your definition of divine masculine?

I don't know if I've ever fully defined it in this way, but yeah. One, one aspect, the Divine Masculine offers its strength and service, and so it creates this container that says, I can hold you, your emotions, your, uh, fierceness, your passion does not scare me, and I can hold this container. Your vulnerability, your— it does not scare me either. So, but I can offer that tender strength. So it's, it's a juxtaposition between strength and tenderness. And, and so like, it's like this hard— not hard shell, but this strength on the outside, but also allows the heart to open up and heart to, uh, share and heart to express and heart to, um, activate its higher potential. So like, I see the Divine Masculine, it's not toxic masculine, it's not controlling, it's not dictating. Sometimes it will lead with strength and lead with emphasis. Like, I had to lead my wife even while I've been down here visiting you guys with a few elements of strength, but it was tender strength. Um, but it's really present too.

So yeah, that's kind of what I felt too. It's, it's this safety, like a, like a really warm, safe place and, um, where I can relax. Yeah, like I don't have to be— and I used to think I used to think that was like hard man, right? Like a guy, and I'm not saying that you're not, but like, like the guy with like tattoos and guns and Harley, right? And like, that's what's gonna make me feel safe. And then I've realized that's not what makes me feel safe either, right? Like it's, it's like a facade. It's not the full real thing that I need.

Yeah, and the feminine needs, one of the biggest things that I had to learn where I really screwed it up is was the feminine wants to feel that emotional safety. You might, like, you felt physically safe with Eric, but you didn't feel emotionally safe until we got to that breakthrough last night. And I didn't. My wife complained for years of like, you're emotionally disconnected from your heart. You're like, she called me names and stuff when we get in fights and say, you're so— she'd say, you're kind, but you're an asshole to me sometimes. And it was because I was emotionally disconnected from my heart, which didn't create the safe space for her to be connected to me. She didn't feel her heart connection with me.

Mm-hmm, yeah, that makes me think, I think I shared this on a call before we met in person, and it was that Tucker Carlson episode with Sean Ryan. And he was talking about, like, it was a really good 10-minute clip, but it was, he was saying, don't marry, don't marry a girl with daddy issues basically, because it's gonna be a lot of work. And he knows all of these girls that are either in like sex work or they had— they have some kind of daddy issues and they're just really jumpy. And I was listening so, so in tune because I'm like, oh, he's talking to me right now. And I had never felt it articulated so well. The jumpiness where every fight is, it's the end of the world. We're not meant to be together. We're going to end up in a divorce or we're going to have to like somehow figure out how to like make it work. And that was one of the biggest things I wanted to get over was my attachment wounds, right? And like, I guess you would say avoidant and fearful avoidant. So when it comes to these attachment wounds, like, I guess with how does the medicine help in rewiring or like reprogramming to get to secure attachment?

Yeah. So, you know, core wounds are going to cause us to— as long as those core wounds are still active and present, they're going to cause us to be like, I was dismissive avoidant, my wife is fearful avoidant. Similar pattern, I think Eric's more anxious attachment. And everyone can get to a secure attachment, but it's not easy. And now the medicine creates this radical opening. I think it's arguably the most powerful opening we ever have in our known lifetime for creating beautiful, transformative change. Because in the research, and there's a research report, Nardo 2023, August 2023, Talks about the acute subjective experience and the critical period reopening. So two major windows. The window we were in yesterday, that's the acute subjective window where your nervous system is basically more wide open than it's ever been before. And that's why we can do so much deep work and we can go right in. We actually hit on several of your and helped heal several of your core wounds and Eric's. But when you heal those core wounds, then it's like your operating system, the metaphor I use is almost like your operating system is in your nervous system. Let's say it's got 100% capacity. Well, if you got 30% of capacity eaten up by like this daddy wound and this major abandonment or whatever, then you got another 10% by a boyfriend, then another 10% by losing a pet or whatever, like all these traumas where, you know, trauma is basically, uh, emotion that got frozen in your nervous system from some— like we had the thing come up, I think when you were 15 or 17, uh, you know, uh, I don't remember the exact year. And, and so those things get frozen and the medicine creates this safe space because MDMA, for example, floods your, your body with this feeling of safety. Now initially you resisted it.

Yes. And I wanted to ask about that too, because, um, for a second I'm saying, because you ended up going over me and starting with Eric because I just couldn't.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I can't even see anything right now. And I'm like, I'm highly sensitive to caffeine, to cannabis, like whatever it is. Like I need very little to do the job. So I did this thing, not knowing, like really like what is gonna happen, not knowing anything. And then I'm like, that's not working. Why is it not working?

Yeah, and so your protector part, so in your psyche, like we have these different parts and dimensions of ourselves. Well, your protector part initially let you see a memory that we were working on, and then it said, nope, I'm aboard, aboard, aboard, not safe. And what I often see with a lot of the female or couple clients I work with, where they're all like leaders and high performers, but high functioning, but until we work through the husband, the wife doesn't feel safe to open up. And so even if, like, I have clients that it's really the wife that hired me, and so I'm like, I gotta help you with your PTSD, let's get to you. And then she's like, we'll try and get to her, and nope, uh, won't go. And then I'll go right to the husband right afterwards, and boom, we'll work through him. And then now, because he's open and vulnerable and she feels his heart, and then now she's— it's like her nervous system says, okay, it's okay, I can come out and play. And that's what happened with you. And then, you know, then I made— helped you guys get into that physical connection where he's holding you and grounding you, because I could, I could just read that you were not, not feeling safe, even though you consciously, you thought you were.

Yeah.

And but physiologically, I was like, no, she doesn't feel safe. And then he, when he put his shoulders on you, the masculine has such a gift of being able to ground the feminine if they know how to do it. And so, you know, when you put the shoulders on, a man puts where the woman feels physically safe, right? Then you just felt like your swirl, your emotions just kind of calmed down, right?

Yeah. The way that you had described it, 'cause again, like I went in not like, not blind 'cause you provided a ton of information before, but blind in like a somatic sense. 'Cause I had no idea what was gonna happen to my body and what I have been told through media and, social media is that this is like a party drug and it's super dangerous and that's why it's illegal and only like reckless people take it. Um, and that it's like very— like it's an upper, like it gives you a ton of energy and like you see people raving and it's this thing and they're like super sexual on it and it's a sex drug, right? And I take it and once it finally kicks in, like after Eric did some work I was like, whoa, I feel like I got hit with a blow dart. And I told Eric today, I was like, you know in that movie Old School where Frank the Tank gets hit with the blow dart and falls into the pool and then like the music starts playing? Like, that's kind of what happened. And I'm like, I turned into a jellyfish and I couldn't move. Like, how do people dance on this? Yeah, yeah, it's like, that's not what's happening. And then I kind of felt very out of body, which I also wasn't anticipating. So when you're like know that this is what happens to the feminine, especially if she is, um, on burn— like on the edge of burnout or burning out, and the masculine can ground. And I'm like, there's no way. And seriously, soon as, um, I think you did it first and then Eric did it next, like put your hands on my shoulder, immediately I was back in my body and I wasn't floaty. I could feel the ground, I could feel my legs. And then the moment anyone would release, it's like right back up. And then that's when I laid down because I was like, this is a lot.

Yeah.

But yeah, the— like So to deny like the polarity even within, within like the male-female is so crazy to me because it's not, it's not about anything else, not about identity. It's like this thing exists beyond us on such a different level, and you have to experience that to know that that is true.

Yeah. And the other thing that's really cool with MDMA is because it's an associative. So like LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, it's dissociative, which takes you out of your body. And when you've been through significant trauma, you know, you've had narcissistic dad and other— a bunch of trauma in your past. Well, what happens in trauma, especially sexual trauma too, we want to escape and we disassociate. And my wife would do the same thing. She would— her imagination was so vivid as a kid where she'd go out of body when her parents were fighting. And so how do we heal trauma is like we got to bring you back into the association. In a safe way where nervous system doesn't get retriggered. That's why like cognitive behavioral therapy does not work very well for significant higher levels of trauma and PTSD because it just retriggers you. You're talking about it and also you're locked in your head. Well, the memory is stored in your body. You know, the body keeps the score. Well, the reality is that your skeletal muscle cells versus red blood cells, your red blood cells live an average of 115 days. Skeletal muscle cells live an average of 15 years or 5,475 days. So everything that has happened to you for the last 15 years, your body remembers, literally remembers in its cells. And then beyond that, whatever happened before, your body also— the muscle cells communicated to the new muscle cells, hey, this happened, watch out for this, this is danger. And so that's a massive thing. You had to get back into your body and then we had to move through those traumas. While you are associated, but the medicine basically says, hey, you're in a feeling of belonging and love and safety, so you can handle this. 'Cause you couldn't handle it under a normal, like, things like rape and things like abuse and things like abandonment and all the things that humans go through. Well, you can't handle it without the medicine to face, or you can, but it's so much slower and so much more painful.

Yeah, and the thing that I found really interesting with me and my experience was there were things that I never would have said were stored or were a big deal, or like I had like this mental resilience. So the one story I actually texted my girlfriend this morning was getting drugged at a party.

Yeah.

Yeah, and somehow ending up in my room and with like a guy on top of me and I couldn't move. And she walked in and I like— she was like, she didn't really give me a lot. I think she's at work, but I was like, I don't know if you knew what was about to happen or what you were doing, but like you just like, ah, you saved me. And just like, thank you. And I thought like Yeah, I was like, nothing happened, so I'm fine. It wasn't— yeah, like, I wasn't in it. It came up and it was like my whole body was doing this huge release. And the funny thing was, we were talking about Goop, and who is the somatic practitioner you talked about?

Uh, Peter Levine.

Peter Levine. I'm like, is that real? Because I'm watching these things and I see these bodies that are just like convulsing, just doing these jerky movements and like tremoring, and I'm like, that's so fake. And then it starts happening to me. And I literally looked at you and Eric, I'm like, if I were watching myself right now, I would say she's faking it. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it. And just like, just be. And I was like, I'm not judging it. It was like, it was funny to me because I have avoided or like dismissed this work and space for so long because I think so many people, the way that it's presented online, it's almost like a caricature. Yeah. Or it's, like this disco and like glitters everywhere and raves and this big hats. And I'm like, I don't get it. Like, I just— it's not believable to me. And I think I was probably the biggest skeptic. And I think my body, like, my initial response was even saying that, right? Which is why I couldn't dip into it. And then once it happened and I was letting go, I was like, no, this is so real. And it was the most powerful, like, healing experience of my life. And like, uh, when we're going through any kind of trauma, or, um, even like letting Eric like talk about wounds or things that I've done to him or things that have bothered him, it's this place of like, you can say anything to me and I love you and I'm not going anywhere. And you can cry and you can rage and you can like just un— like bear it all, and I'm here for it and I love you so much. And it's like really meaning that on a cellular level, like I'm not going anywhere. And I'm like, I'm sorry it took me so long.

Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, it's okay. Everything's happening in its perfect time. And, you know, you had a massive reset last night, this factory reset, and Eric did too. And you're— and then you also had a factory reset together of connection, and it was And then also in your body, you know, like the memory of almost being raped at that party where you were drugged and all that. So yes, it quote physically did not happen.

Yeah.

But the fear was stuck.

Yeah.

It was frozen. And it will stay frozen until it gets unfrozen. And so this process that, you know, it's really the combo. Yes, psychedelics are used in the party sense. But they have incredible benefit, and that's why the FDA's fast-tracked them through the approval process. And they still have some hoops to jump through to get it fully approved, but it's, it's the biggest breakthrough in mental health that we've seen in our lifetime when it's coupled especially with the therapeutic trauma-informed, um, high-level therapy outcome that we want to have to move through those massive things. Because you, you have that opening, and how you use that opening, you have to be such a good steward of it. And so like there's also practitioners, like where practitioners are emotionally disconnected, like in, in the experience that you had previously, not understanding how much you have to create safety and also respect the participants and respect their autonomy and read. And that guy probably is not as trauma-informed. I like lived through— my wife's a 3-time suicide survivor, so when I got into this work because of her trauma and trying to figure it out and trying to heal it. And ultimately we did get her fully cured of depression. But like in your case, um, you guys have really recalibrated and it's going to be beautiful to see how things unfold for you too.