524: Why You Keep Attracting Narcissists (A Perspective You Haven't Heard) with Ehsun Anwar

So do you believe that men that exhibit narcissistic traits then can change?

Absolutely, yeah. Because I'm one of them. Yeah. So I come from that background and I've helped my father a lot. He's come a hell of a long way. And other men that have worked me, I've seen it in them. So I don't really buy into anything that mainstream psychology says because it's so hard and intellectual. The first thing you're going to see is that, yeah, bleak chances. 97% chance that a man with NPD will ever change. No, I think the chances are way higher than that.

But do you think that like, that narcissism is this like clinical condition or you think it's just a label?

It's just a label. It's just when I say ignorant, I'm not being in any way condescending, I'm just trying to be factual. It's these hardcore labels that we prescribe to people's, like I said, symptoms of millions of years of evolution. Who are you to be born in this time after millions of years of evolution come along and say, yep, slap on the term narcissism, he's screwed, he's gone. How arrogant is that?

Do you think that at some level all men that are have narcissistic traits?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the thing too, because I'm like, so they're all narcissists? Maybe they're just men. Flow, surrender, let go. Just flow, surrender, let go. I'm the one I've been waiting for. Welcome back to the High Self podcast. My name is Sahara Rose and on this podcast I love to take spiritual concepts and really make it grounded and practical in your life. Because to me, the whole point of spirituality is how can I move through the world in a more embodied and heart open way. So this past year I've been really diving into religion and I've been really sitting with the question. I feel like we're having like a relationship epidemic right now. I'm seeing so many people going through divorces and breakups and just dynamics in the relationship that are no longer serving them. And I feel like we're also having this opportunity for a renaissance of redefining relationship and doing the healing work that can actually allow us to what we ultimately want to be seen and heard and felt and experienced by someone else. But we can't just bypass our ways and get there and fall in love and happily ever after. Tried that, didn't work. But instead you gotta do the deeper healing work you have to look at your inner child and your parental upbringing and their parental upbringing and how, you know, the traumas are all interconnected and all that fun stuff that really helps us actually have the love that we want. So in my personal journey of reading books and following different Instagram accounts, I found this beautiful soul that you're gonna hear about today on the episode. And what I really resonated with was his ability to speak about the mother wound and the father wound and shows up in dynamics in our relationship because ultimately that was our first experience with someone of that gender. And whether we are conscious or unconscious of it, we are going to be repeating patterns that we saw in our parents dynamics and that we have normalized. So in this conversation, we're going to be speaking about what that looks like both for men and women, in both the mother and the father wound, and also speaking about just kind of this, like, collective term of the narcissist and empath dynamic. And while I do believe that the term has been overused and kind of like, labeled of like, you're a narcissist. No, you're a narcissist. It's like, I've also actually seen a lot of people do have these very real narcissistic traits. And a lot of us who are spiritual women, who are empaths and healers and intuitives often came that way because of people pleasing and codependency and enmeshment and, you know, all of the ways that we have decided to merge with someone else for our perceived safety rather than being in our own inner experience. And then how that often creates a breeding ground to have a narcissistic person show up in our lives. And we've normalized that dynamic because often we saw our parents having it. Not like, I'm talking about myself. And before we get into this conversation, I would love if you would hit subscribe on this podcast. This is the best way for you to stay tuned on future episodes, and it helps raise the vibration of the planet. So wherever you're listening to this podcast, hit subscribe and we'll keep the good juju flowing. So without further ado, let's welcome Essen to the Highest Self podcast.

What an amazing introduction. Thank you, Sara. I'm so excited.

We keep it real. So the first question I have for you is, what makes you your highest self?

I would answer that on two levels. I think the most obvious level, what most people would relate to, is just me suffering the least amount possible. So me being as relaxed as possible, as joyful as possible, as easeful as possible and fulfilled in my life. Those are really the areas that most people look at. So that would be my highest self on a superficial level. And I'm always climbing that ladder. I'm always trying to heal myself further so that I'm less anxious, I'm more fulfilled, I'm more grateful. And then on a deeper level, I actually believe that there is no self. And what I mean by that is that we. We have a body where we feel things, we experience the world. We have a mind where we think thoughts, but we're not either of those things. And I'm not just saying that because I read it in a book. I've experienced it this way. And at first I couldn't get my head around it when I experienced it. Because to admit that you're not your thoughts or your history or your emotions is like a death of everything, you know? And it's confusing. But I spend a lot of time in silence and stillness. And I've come to love it. It's the most fulfilling place for me. And in that place, I'm nobody and nothing. But I feel really connected to life. So my true highest self is just the life energy that animates my body. And I think that's in everything. A rock, you, the air. And that's how I would answer that question.

Yeah, Effy, so how did you, as a straight man, come to want to work on relationships and healing and things like that?

Suffering is the key word. The suffering that I've been through, like most people who come on this path. Suffering that I've seen in my life from my mother and father and to heal myself, I saw was the only place to stay sane in a world that says if you just get the success, the money, the relationship, you're going to be happy. I immediately saw at a young age, actually, that is not going to keep me happy. And it became really important to me to find ways ASAP to relax and to reduce suffering. That's like my life mission now.

You must have just been an old soul then.

I don't know what to call it. I actually feel like God talks to me directly. I know that sounds like a very bold claim, but when I'm still, I just get downloads. I don't know where they come from. I just know things that I don't read. I just see them and then I talk about them and people resonate.

I believe God is always talking to all of us. It's just, are we listening? And, you know, we often have that imposter syndrome of like, oh, God, can't be talking to little old me. And it's like, you don't need a priest or an imam or a third party person. It's direct.

Yes, exactly. I agree with that. And it's funny because there's no words or thoughts to describe it. You just have to be still. And when I was a kid, I was a very curious observer. So I would observe my environment, I'd observe my friends, things like racism. I went through a lot of racism when I was a kid. I was a brown guy in a very predominantly racist white town, industrial town. So the racism there was pretty horrific. They didn't know whether to call me a Pakistan or a nigger, which is a black person. But I had this intuitive sense that, okay, this is coming from their mind, but something deeper tells them and me that we're actually one. So even when I was like 8 years of age receiving horrific abuse, I could feel that we're one. So I knew that we're different, that there's something different what's happening inside of me. But nobody tells me this. My parents don't know what it is. I can't find any books. And I just trusted it. And one thing led to another, and I just learned more and more.

Soon to let go Just flow Soon to let go I'm the one I've been waiting for. Do you hear this voice right here? That's my voice. Yes. I've become a Persian pop star. I am so excited to share with you my debut song that was produced, written and performed by me called Trust Flow. So this song is an affirmation that I kept telling myself the year after my divorce when I was faced with so much uncertainty. Trust flow, surrender, let go. And if you know me, I love afrobeats music. I love dancing and whining and having a good time. But I wanted to create something that I felt good about putting into my consciousness, and that's really what all of my music is about. Creating music that you want to get stuck in your head that's raising your vibration. So I'm so excited to share with you my new song, Trust Flow. You can download it and stream it on Spotify, Apple iTunes, SoundCloud, wherever you listen to music. I got a music video on YouTube and I'm so excited to share a piece of my heart with you. And let this be your permission slip that you can evolve and you can allow new iterations of your dharma, your soul's purpose to come through. So stream Trust Flow wherever you Are and share with me a real of you dancing along to it on your Instagram so I can see, share and celebrate you. You can find the direct link to the song in the show notes. Definitely an old soul to have had that awareness. But it's true that even that part that is hurting that parent, that's hurting us, that bully that's hurting us, it's just us in another form simultaneously existing in the now. And it's like all of these. It's like we're all fractals of the same source having different experiences.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Now, I didn't know that then. I didn't, because I just hadn't read any literature whatsoever. I just felt that somehow we are the same. And that's all I knew. There was no more words to that. So I never took. They did traumatize me quite heavily, but I didn't take it so personally that I allowed myself to become bitter and resentful. I always took an angle of curiosity. And I think what people are missing today, especially largely in the spiritual community and the healing community, is that we're missing curiosity about why people are angry, why people are abusive to each other. Curiosity leads to healing bitterness and anger leads to more division. So it's not gonna get us anywhere.

Agree with that. So I wanna talk about a video that you made about the mother wound and how it shows up in men. And I think a lot of us, you know, women who have dated, been in relationships, we realize that oftentimes the man subconsciously does repeat his relationship with his mother, whether it's turning you into his mother or hating his mother. And often this like, Madonna whore complex that exists in a lot of male consciousness. So can you share a little bit about how the mother wound shows up?

I will. Would love to. Can you just tell me what you mean by Madonna whore complex?

So the Madonna whore complex is this idea that you are either the Madonna as a woman, virgin, saintly, the wife to be loved, but could not, cannot be fucked. And the whore is the Mary Magdalene. I'm putting that in quotes because the way that they've portrayed her, but she's the slut, she's the whore. She's the consort who can be. Yeah, fucked, but never loved. And that because of it, often comes from Christianity, but in many forms. It's like she's either wifey, but you got to go to someone else for your sexual needs, or she's the, you know, the stripper, but you can never love her. And it's Like a lot of women feel like to get men's attention, they have to portray themselves as the sexual being, but then they never get the love. But then a lot of women who are like, I was the perfect good girl, you know, end up being cheated on or left. So then they're like. So it's this idea that you have to be one or the other when as women, we're. We're both and.

Yeah, understood. So the mother wound in men shows up in many different ways. But there are really, I would say two really distinct ways that come up all the time. The first is the mother who's the people pleaser. So she's typically married to the narcissistic man. And she has learned through her lineage, through all the women who came before her, that the best way to survive is to just put his needs first. Shut off to your own needs and emotions, be quiet about them. Because he's had a hard life, he's doing everything for us and just keep him happy and beyond that. So keeping him happy is the best way to keep the whole household happy. Because men get angry, scary things happen, women get angry. You know, some violent words are thrown about, but war doesn't happen. Men get angry. It's a whole different league. So women have that innate fear. Now if you're the son of that kind of mother who's behaving that way, there's a lot of that kind of woman is really overwhelmed because she's not emotionally seen. Her heart is so riddled with fear. But also love that the son is getting, he's receiving that love. Depending on how much nurturing he's received, that'll be how familiar he is with love. But typically they're feeling a lack because she is feeling a lack. So he hasn't received enough warm nurturing. That's one style of the wound. And he's actually craving it. But because she's overwhelmed and having to do so much for her emotionally absent husband, and she's missing so much now the son's missing so much. So it's a knock on effect. And more importantly, he's seeing the model of how men relate to women. So the man just basically uses her as an object who gets things done for me. She pleasures me in bed, she cooks, she cleans the place and that's it. We don't really need to connect so much. We don't need to talk about feelings. If we do talk about feelings, the easy way for me to get out is to just shut down, be defensive or be angry. And tell her that she's ungrateful for my massive efforts. So the son is building this psychological model of how to relate to women through this way. So now he's looking for a woman to pretty much use in the same way without knowing it. But he thinks that he's honoring her, especially if his father was a hard worker, if he's ambitious, he wants her to just be at home and keep him nurtured and happy, but not connect with her emotionally. So he repeats the same dynamic. He cannot emotionally provide for her because he never felt emotionally provided for himself. He doesn't know what that is. So a neat way to summarize it. A man with a mother wound cannot emotionally provide for his woman because he wants her to provide for him. And instead of being her rock, he actually wants her to be his rock. And yeah, it's really unfortunate because if she speaks up to him about it, it brings up in him the rage of his inner child who felt, I never got what I wanted. So it feels like a lose, lose battle for the partners that get with this kind of man. So that's one interesting.

I literally just described my whole family right there. Damn. And I feel so many, you know, families, period, especially Middle Eastern, South Asian, is like, you're raised as a woman to be like this, you know, and it's always like, oh, like just keep, keep the man happy, but like at a distance, you know, because you can't, you can't emotionally regulate with him because they're erratic, they get angry. So just get what you need, which is stability and security and, you know, maybe some weekends and then go to your other woman for everything else. And I think that that has been for so many generations, women's like, coping mechanisms, you know, and especially because back in the day, if you didn't have a man providing for you, like, you were screwed, you know, like you, you were ostracized. Whereas today I think what's challenging is a lot of women, you don't actually need a man to provide for you financially, but you still, like, emotionally and energetically. But then it's like, what are you willing to put up with and sacrifice for that? So, okay, there's so, so much on this one. I could spend, like the whole podcast on this one. What are the other types? And maybe we'll come back to it.

Yeah, so that was the woman he sees who is really passive, really submissive. Right? That's the wounding. It gives him that. Okay, that's normal behavior for a woman. Anything outside, a total pushover means that she's too bitchy or she's ungrateful. Now, the other type is where the pendulum in his mother swung to the opposite. Here is the masculinized woman. Here's the woman who was either parenting him single, so she had to do everything herself. She's paying the bills and raising him emotionally. Now she's on a different level of overwhelm. She's in her masculine and her feminine is feeling deprived. She's in the most pain. That kind of mother wound, the man who grows up with that kind of woman, even if she's sometimes that woman has a passive man as a husband. So this man with a mother wound is. Is seeing the masculine in a female, and that makes him embody the feminine so that he can get her love. And so that man kind of becomes overly passive, overly polite, and he's really disconnected from his masculine essence, which is stressful for him in a different way. Not stressful that he's overworked, but stressful that he feels a void. He doesn't know what's missing. And what happens is he looks for women who are the same way, similar to his mother. And what he's really doing is he's reincarnating a model of his mother in an attempt to heal what he was missing from her, which is loving acceptance. And he tries to go about that by pleasing her, falling over her. Yes, ma', am. I'm not going to say no to anything. I'm going to be there for her. And that kind of woman, her wounding is that she basically, she has a hatred for men because she's that way because she feels betrayed or she saw her mother was betrayed. So she sees a man who's disconnected from his masculine. You're not going to find any aggression in him. So she's like, good, he passes the trauma check there. I'm going to let him in. But deep down, she ends up resenting him because she has to take control of everything. She can't trust him. He's not really reliable. He's not taking the lead and. And nobody ends up healing. She doesn't heal her wounded feminine and he doesn't reclaim his masculine because there's this dynamic going where she wants to keep control and he wants to remain passive, and then the wound gets perpetuated that way.

So what, what is the trauma that makes a woman attracted to a man like that?

To a passive man?

Yeah.

The trauma is that she grew up. One very common style is that she grew up having to take control of Everything. Sometimes she had a passive man, sorry, a passive father, or she just had a single mom who was overwhelmed. So I've had many, many clients like this.

So it's both. Even women who had a single mom often. Okay, yes.

And, and what happens is this kind of mother, she's. She's carrying a lot of resentment that I just have to do everything myself. Now I see a lot of this. What's funny is I see that wounding also in women who had the empath mum, but they were conditioned to be a boss woman c. Or whatever. And these kind of women basically never got attention for just being. Just being. For just being a human. It's like, it's conditioned like you have to get everything done. So whether the trauma comes because there was no father to help with the bills and all that and she had to pay and look after the house, or the trauma comes because she was just conditioned to be basically masculine. I really believe, and this might upset a lot of like, feminist type women type women that if a woman is more excited about masculine energies than feminine energies, she's gonna be resentful without knowing it. She's gonna be stressed. And that's what I see. That's. That's the basis of that trauma.

Yeah, I don't think any woman wants to have like a beta man who's, you know, like in his feminine where she has to like over provide. But I think in attraction sometimes, even if you grew up with an angry father, maybe you see any form of like, masculinity as unsafety, you know, because you've seen the shadow, the toxicity, the. The rage abuse that then you go for the safe man who's also often passive, submissive. And then you wonder why you're not turned on by him. Like, I watched the Barbie movie. I don't know if you saw that. It was actually interesting. It's a lot about like patriarchy and conditioning and stuff. And Ken basically was like Barbie's little sidekick. And then he's like, he comes to our world and he learns about patriarch. He's like, I'm gonna do some patriarchy. And he like, becomes this like toxic man and he changes. And it's interesting because it's like, there's an aspect of that of like, he becomes very confident and alpha, which is attractive. But then it also, he becomes a huge narcissist, which is the. Is the knot. So it's almost like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. What do we do?

That's Such an interesting point to bring up. Sahara. I love that one because I'm getting hundreds of questions every day. So what is the answer? Women ask me, how do I encourage my narcissistic partner to emotionally connect? That's the biggest one, really. That's where the most pain is. What is the correct balance? And I'm not going to sit here and pretend I have the answer, but I feel like balance is the answer. You know, I want to go a little deep on what is narcissism and why are certain traits of it attractive to all humans, not only women, but all humans? And I want to start by saying, just take a look around. The biggest celebrities, stars, athletes, businessmen, politicians, man, they're like super narcissistic. They're obsessed with themselves, their image and that drive, that tunnel vision. Focus is needed. Right. And so I feel like I have this type of empathy for narcissism that I don't read about anywhere else. And I want to try to explain it here to say why it's not really permissible to give narcissistic abuse to people, but it has an ancient and to be quite honest, sacred history. And here's what I mean by that. We wouldn't be here having this conversation if millennia of narcissistic men did not do what they did and were not the way they were. Because humanity had to survive barbaric conditions, brutal ice ages, Stone Ages. You know, if you're not like fighting for your life against a saber toothed tiger or hunting you're surviving brutal weather and having to.

Napoleon complex.

I've not heard that term, but if.

That'S similar to what it's like a complex that they call a narcissist because Napoleon was obsessed with himself, but he was also like a major discoverer.

Yeah, okay, there you go. Yeah. So always looking for more. And basically what the root of narcissism is, extreme ambition in survival. I want to survive and I want to create prosperous conditions for myself and my family. So let's look at more recent history. In any civilization, the Romans, the Greeks, the greatest man, Alexander the Great was called so because he could basically conquer the most land and kill the most people with this cunning intellect. And if he hadn't done that, discoveries, and when someone creates a kingdom that way they enable the, the level of safety in their kingdom to create science, medicine and these things. So that masculine energy that narcissistic people have is a vital dimension of life. Then the masculine energy paves the way for the feminine energy, which women mostly carry. And have carried through history to bring up the kids. All that stone and wood that the men have been hammering with their brute strength and an emotionless state of being can now be built into a warm, safe home. So both energies complement each other. So if the world went to shit right now, if electricity just stopped, nobody had to follow any laws. There's going to be fires and riots a few days from now, guaranteed. People are going to be killing, looting and what we call narcissistic. People now are going to be your best friends. In that time period. The strongest and most ruthless man is the one who keep you alive. I can feel that in my body. So that is the. That's how I call narcissism. Sacred in that sense. Now let's bring this back to modern times. The reason that narcissism has such a bad rap now is because now we have so much safety that that crazy ambition to conquer and fight and compete is being rendered use us, right? But it took millions of years to get us here. So people today who are absolutely like abusing narcissists as fucked up people, these people are lacking empathy. These people are not seeing humanity for what it is. These people are missing millions of years of evolution. Like I have goosebumps as I say that because I really feel how much hardship humanity has been through, you know? So that's what I mean by the sacred side of narcissism now bringing that to modern times. Men now have a duty to see, okay, I have enough finances, I don't need to mindlessly chase more money. What does my partner or what are my family saying? That I'm not emotionally available. Maybe I can start giving more time to that. Let's see what that means. What does that mean? That's what men need to do, but it's really scary for them. And here's another thing that women must understand. This will answer a lot of women's questions. If you want to disarm your man who's narcissistic, you must learn more about the generational trauma of men. Picture being a young boy. And just for sport, you're beaten by your father. Not because he's cruel. He loves you. He wants you to be battle hardened. I'm going back to like spartan times and all that. You think emotions are not only weak, but bad for you. You think that connecting to your emotions means that you won't survive war, you won't survive battle. Men, us men, we had to be ready to carry spears thrust into another man's flesh and be ready to have our own limbs cut off. I'm giving graphic examples, but these are real for 99% of our history. Just try to feel what that does to a man's psyche. Try to understand how much he fears emotions at that point. So now you come into modern times and yeah, not all men are warriors or killing. Now they're quite the opposite. A lot of men are just pussies, passive. But still that genetic memory exists and the thought of discussing emotions gives them that ick and fear. So to strike the balance, which is why I started talking about this, means for men to also understand their own trauma, women to understand it. So we can come together in union, not shame men for being narcissistic statistic and say, hey, millions of years of wounding. Let's now get the balance. Let's introduce some feminine energy into you so that you can be emotionally connected to those around you as well.

So a lot of people ask me, how do you just record a solo cast where you're going off cuff telling these amazing stories, making it really interesting and conversational and funny at the same time. Like, do you have a script? How do you do this? And the truth is, no, I don't. I just just enter into this kind of channeled realm and I share with you my process on how I was able to go from an awkward to a confident speaker in my new course, Speak with Soul. So this is a 21 day guided journey that I custom curated just for you for the people out there who have incredible messages to share, but they feel like their throat chakras are a little bit blocked, they're in their head, they stutter, they don't know how to tell an interesting story. So every single day for 21 days, we're going to be working together in this course and by the end of it, you're going to record your podcast intro. So if you're ready to get started, head over to speak with soul course.com again, that's speak with soul course.com and you can find that link in the show notes. And hey, you better have me on your podcast when you're blowing this up. That was so beautifully expressed. And yeah, like I was imagining a sign that's like narcissist lives matter, you know, like narcissist. But it's interesting because my dad is for sure a narcissist. And you know, I remember being in high school, I was like, you, old school. I could see all the dynamics in my family at a young age. And I would like print out articles to him of, like, signs you're a narcissist. And I thought, like, if I just educated him, I'm like, what? A narcissist? Like, he'll just change. And of course he does not want to read any of that. So, like, growing up, my. My parents were very much the first dynamic you said. My mom, the Persian perfect housewife. And my dad, strong, ambitious, serial entrepreneur. Like sports this, that be the best, be, you know, number one at everything or you're a loser, you know. And like, that's what I grew up with. And I remember asking my mom later, I'm like, what even made you attracted to a guy like this? Like, he doesn't want to listen to you. He just talks all the time. He just lectures everyone he can find. He also went to MIT and got three PhDs. So, like, he's on another freaking, like, genius, but also like Asperger's, I believe, which often people with Asperger's kind of autism, that you're like a genius, but you lack empathy. You can't read people. So. And she was like, it was just that he was so ambitious and always goal oriented and always strong and like, such a leader that those very things that you just mentioned were the very things that made him and so many women attracted to these men who also have narcissistic traits. And it, you know, and for her, having just escaped from Earth and coming from this place of like, war and unsafety, and you see a man who's like a protector and a provider and has a strong sense of will, that feels like the safest bet for you. Someone to listen to you and hold space is not even on your mind at that point. But then, you know, then for me growing up, I watched shows like Full House, where the dad is, like, talking to the daughter about her boyfriend and listening. And I'm like, why isn't my dad like that? You know? And I remember years later, like a few years ago actually, I did family constellation work, which is this, this intergenerational healing. And I, like, called my dad and I told him how I felt and he's like, well, you know what, Sahara? Like, I had zero percent of a dad. So if you had 50% of a dad, you know, that's a lot better than zero. And I was like, this is the most narcissistic thing I've ever heard. And it does make sense of, like, I'm comparing myself to this, like, very new idea of what a father is in, like, western terms of, like, someone who's like, like, empathetic. And he's always there, and he's this and he's that and, like. Cause I didn't have that. I'm like, I had a traumatic childhood, and it's like, if I just lived in Iran, it would just. He would just be a normal dad, because those are just the qualities of it. So it just helped put things back into perspective of he was doing the best that he can. And what he saw a man was. Was a protector and a provider.

Yeah, exactly. That's beautifully said. And also, I just felt something in this moment. Like, you just brought in such a light and beautiful feminine energy after the heaviness of what I just. What I said was so heavy and serious, and I felt. I felt pain because I come from that background. So there was definitely pain in my energy field. And you just brought in this whoosh. And that's actually the dynamic that is the masculine. That's. See, what men love about that is it's like there's a soothing effect. It's like, it's okay, we're here to be the present moment. That's like. So I want to give that as a. As a. As a side note of gratitude there. And you were reflecting really nicely on the women's perspectives of how it feels to receive that kind of man when he's stuck in his trauma and building empathy for it. And I think that it's a good time to talk about how that wounding shows up in women as well.

Yes, the father wound.

Yeah, exactly.

I did a plant medicine journey, and I was like, can it be to manifest true love? And they're like, no, father wound, all of you. I'm like, no, again, this. It all starts there. Yeah.

You know, I use the term wound so much on social media only because that's what people relate to in this age of healing and trauma and all of that. But it's not my. My word of choice. My word of choice wouldn't get any views. It wouldn't get traction.

What's your word of choice?

I wouldn't be able to spread my message. To be honest, I haven't thought of a word of choice yet. What I mean by that is it's not wounding. And trauma in itself is just life. This is the way it had to be. Why do we have to make it so heavy and dark and like, there's something wrong with this person and they're broken and they need medication. And modern science is catching up to this now. Right. Even see psychologists saying that when we diagnose people With ADHD or bipolar, it's just repressed emotions, and we're giving pills for the symptoms. These repressed emotions we call trauma. I say, why call it that? It's just how evolution happens. Why don't you spend a few decades having to hunt and gather on yourself, and we'll see how you turn out? That's just life. Right? But let's go without wording. Wounding in women.

Conditioning, you could say. Or imprinting.

Yeah, I'm not thinking about the wording here. I'm trying to put in as much feel as I can because I feel deeply. What happened to feminine energy and women over time? I believe our body is a walking record of the past. I spend a lot of time with my mother, and I've read her a lot, and I understand her lineage. And women are so special on this planet. Women are so special, not because they're the givers of life and the carriers of us, but because of what they've done through history to support the men, like I said. So we have the barbaric men, if you want to call it that. The caveman who doesn't have emotions. He just hits people with a club if they disagree with him. To protect my family and goes out hunting. Now, women all along have sensed. They sense his every emotion, primarily to keep themselves safe. Because if I don't sense his every emotion, he might hit me and I might die. So it has a bit of a dark root. Empathy has a dark root to it. That's why many empaths suffer a lot. The root of empathy is basically avoidance of pain.

I feel very called out right now.

Same with me. The women, over time, what they've done is they've seen their man, they've protected themselves, but they've loved him, even though he's a savage barbarian who could kill her at any moment, even though she's doing so much for him at home. She's keeping the place warm. She's keeping it. She's cooking the food. She's nurturing him. She's soothing his wounds from battle. She also gives him something that he really knows not much about, and that's love. She keeps his heart warm when he comes home from battle and he's exhausted. She makes it worth living. There's a phrase in Hindu tradition that Shiva without shakti would feel empty. I might have got that wrong, but essentially what it means is that a masculine man without his feminine energy would kill himself. Like, what is life worth living for? Is this all it is? So women have done that over time. And they've stood by their men even when the man is like abusive or beating her. Now, I'm not saying that's morally right. This is not a question of morals. This is a question of what's necessary. Can you imagine the women of today being with the men of the past, saying, oh, this guy, like, you know, he went and fucked these women when he went to his plunder trip. The Vikings sailed to England and come back with plunder. How many men did you sleep with? That's it, I'm leaving. They didn't do that. You know why? Because keeping the family together was more important. Now today that's looked at as weakness or toxic or she is weak. She is too much of a people pleaser. People pleasers get such a bad rap. No, the root of people pleasing is sacred. And I feel pain when I say that again because not enough people are talking about it. If we didn't have people pleasing women, humanity would not have made it to where we are today. So women have developed this phenomenal sense of intuition, this phenomenal ability to bring relaxation, joy, laughter and love to the present moment. Whereas men stay stuck in their head. So they keep the men sane, they keep the family warm, they keep love going. And that is, that is the history of what we call today's wounding. Can you see now why I don't like the word wounding? It's like a desecration to our, the roots of humanity now today, fine, like women less women with a father wound, they, women can work more so they don't have to stick around and there aren't wars going on. So you can leave home and you don't have a family at the, at 14, you could have been pregnant at 14. You don't have kids when you're 15 or 16, so you can just go along. Equal rights and all of that. But as a result, women are carrying this intense misunderstanding of why men are this way. So they begin hating men and this enormous unhealed trauma, the pain body, where they don't know what to do with their pain. And they think that any form of empathy or serving a man, making him food is just weak and that's forming the father wound. So women with the father wound have become overly masculine. They demonize feminine traits like cooperation and being receptive, not needing to be the smartest person with the last day in the room. They're adopting more masculine energies because they see that as a way to basically replace men. But when they. And not be abused by men. But when they build that masculine energy within them, they suffer in untold ways.

It's hard because for so many women right now, I see them raising their standards of what they're willing to accept in relationships. But then it feels like this void of like, will I ever be met? So do you feel like right now there is this large uprising of the feminine? And to me, as a woman, and maybe this is just my skewed view, and there hasn't been as large of a collective movement in the masculine, and maybe that is soon to come something.

Yeah, I would agree with that. So what you're saying there is that basically women are. Seem to be more aware and doing more of the work, the inner work, and men are just kind of stagnant.

Yeah. So a lot of women are saying, no, I won't accept this. You know, infidelity, abuse, abandonment, like all addiction, all of these different things. So then they're leaving these relationships, waiting for this man who's emotionally available and showing up. And. And so many women I know have not yet found this person. So. And what I see, and it's interesting because even like CNN was like covering this, that there is this like, epidemic in men right now, which is like, related to. I think porn addiction is a really big part of it of like, why should I even like. Again, this is like the Muggle man. But it's like, why should I even try to like, deal with a woman when I can just like, jack off to some porn, get that need out of the way and then be on my own?

Yeah, great points there. So the first area of what are women to do? Then it's like a checkmate. Because I don't want to tolerate the remnants of all these ancient traits, the narcissism and. Yeah. So I always trust in what evolution is doing for us right now. So I don't have a problem with any of this. I think it's moving in the right direction. I think what will happen is as women kind of keep a safe distance, they become more aware of the traumas and they start talking about it more. More people are talking about this on social media. The men are thinking, damn, like, what do I need to do to stay in this relationship to get her back maybe, or something like that, or get a new, healthier relationship. And I hope that one day, sooner than later, men start seeing it as cool to heal yourself and be emotionally connected to a woman and not think that it's weak to talk about your feelings. And so I think the forward movement of women, or even the sidestepping from relationships or whatever way we want to call it is going to drive men to improve. I think that's what's going to happen.

This episode is brought to you by Better Help. So the holidays can be a really triggering time. You know, spending time with family that might not share values with you or not having a family to go back back to. I feel like it just really brings up a lot. And it's helpful to have someone that you can talk to, someone who can, you know, give you a different perspective and add something new and positive in your life in a time that it can feel very overwhelming. So that's why I love therapy. You know, our friends are great, but having a professional just hold space for us and be able to reflect back maybe some of our limiting beliefs or just like, allow us to feel seen, heard and understood with is what I think all of us really deeply desire is something that only a therapist can really do for us. So I love Better Help. It's online, it's convenient, it's affordable. You can find a therapist by filling out a questionnaire and you can switch them at any time. So it's really great to find your soulmate therapist in a really easy way. So you can get 10% off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com Sahara that's betterhelp. H E L P h.com Sahara and you can find that link in the show notes. Yeah, I think that exactly what you said, that there is this, like, biological fear of feeling with men. And I think it's also like, if you start to feel, there's probably a lot there and it feels like this, like, can of worms, right? And so they'd rather just not touch it than go into it, but the only way out is through.

Yeah, I want to share something really profound, actually. When it comes to the fear of. Of feeling men's deepest wounding with the father wound, the first masculine role model is the most painful place to explore. Because it's like, daddy is my superhero. He taught me everything about life. But he is also the same guy who scared the shit out of me. He's also the same guy who disrespected me the most. And psychologically, I believe I'm talking about most men, not me, that if I were to question my dad or be angry at him, that would be disrespectful. I can't rise against him. Now. What happens here is two things. Number one, those feelings of shame and anger get so repressed, you have no idea. Because to get in touch, to even acknowledge that I'm angry at my dad is to betray my dad. That's how men feel. So a woman or someone else, his woman asked him to do that. All the rage of his forefathers is coming up. That's what you're going against. Because he's thinking. You're asking me to believe that my own dad hurt me. Are you crazy? Like any. That anger that he actually has for his father, he's going to project on you or other people. That's what men with the father wound do. They project the anger that they have for their father on everyone else because they don't know it's anger against their own father. A man who is conscious, healed, he's not going to get angry quickly. It's going to take a lot to trigger him. It's going to take a lot to make him defensive because he's at one with himself, he's at one with life. What is there to be triggered about? Unless there's a bear charging at me, I'm going to be ready to fight then. But otherwise, no. So that's one thing there I've forgotten. The second thing about.

Well, that's a really huge piece because I see for a lot of women, you know, issues happen with. In laws and for men, they feel if you say anything bad about their family, they will instantly defend. And there's, yes, there's the beautiful element of family first, but there's also this element of, like, tribalism. And then it's like, often feels like the man choosing between his mother and his wife, which is, I think, the hardest position for a man to be in as well. But then, I mean, you see this time and time again of this, like, point of tension between these two women and the control of the man. And I think ultimately, like, both women just want to be heard and understood. But it feels like a. You're questioning the way that my family does things, which means you don't respect me. So then there's no invitation for conversation and nuance. And the person who loves you and can see the most in your family dynamic from an outside perspective might be bringing something to your attention for your growth. But then I see a lot of men, they just instantly project that out and turn that into, like, you're trying to get in between me and my family. And then that makes the woman feel like, so am I not your family?

Yeah, that's an amazing thing to add here because a wounded man will unfortunately see his woman's criticism or pointers as a deep offense. A deep offense because it's poking at his wounds. But the paradox here, the shame is that if he just listens with his heart, if he feels what she's feeling, it becomes valuable knowledge for growth. And wounded men are missing this because they're stuck in the ego. You see, again, I have empathy for the men who do this because again, bringing this back to historically, to be wrong, if you're wrong, if you haven't got everything right, you're gonna die. You can be punished by your own captain or you'll die. In war, you must be right at all costs. This is the generational trauma of men. So to be wrong in some way, even if it's like, I don't like the way you cooked this meal that day, or this could have been better, or you came home a little too late, the man's thinking, this means I'm wrong. Nope, I cannot be wrong. I must defend. Defend or deflect. Because to be wrong is to die. And he has to be able to transcend that trauma and see. No, everything's okay. It's just, we're just making small day to day improvements here.

Yeah. And to not see woman as the opponent. And I think there's also like throughout history, women adapting to the man's family. Like you literally take on his name and you know, throughout, even in Arabic culture, you, your name as a woman, when you get married, becomes wife of this person. And then once you have a son, it becomes mother of this person. So you don't actually even have a first name anymore. You are only defined by the role that you have in the men's life. I am forever table's mom. That's who I am. So it's like, think about, it's like complete erasure of identity. So for one to criticize the first family of the husband, who are you? You are supposed to completely adapt. You're actually supposed to kind of work for my mom now. That's what the dynamic is, you know, and you see that. And I think for a lot of these women in the older generation, they had to adapt that way for their mother in laws. So they're like, I had to cater to her, who's going to cater to me?

Exactly, exactly. So that is the wounded mother that we were talking about before. And that's such an interesting point. And it's very important because another reason that men are so defensive as well is because historically women have always been the property of men, quite literally. I mean, I think it was the times of Babylon that if a woman was raped, she was actually blamed for being raped, and she would be punished with the perpetrator bound and thrown, a river drowned or something like that. She's equally blamed. So when I feel into that, that again, what I'm feeling is that men eventually, when their mind became strong enough, they came to deeply fear the powers that a woman has, fear that she can potentially that they're attractive towards men, and they would blame the woman for the man's lack of control. So women just have. They call them powers, and then they also get punished for it, and they get labeled as property. They're there to be controlled. Roman texts would also label. Label women as men's property. And I think even the Catholic Church was encouraging men to cleanse the soul of their wife by beating them. So that is the. I have a lot of empathy for feminism. I just. I have empathy for everyone. Right. I don't blame anyone. I don't hate anyone. So I have empathy for the men who get defensive because they have a backlog of thinking, actually, women are my property, and for me to be a proper man, I must control her. If I don't control her, I'm a failure. My family could get obliterated. All these things could happen. And the woman's thinking, man, I have to allow myself to be controlled, and I have to con. Be contorted and disown my authentic self to be a real woman. And now we're in an age where all of a sudden this is getting dismantled. So it's exciting, but it's all moving very fast.

Very. I mean, my grandmother was in a forced child marriage to my grandfather. You know, that's like my dad's parents. Yeah, it's like, that's your. Your mom was 13 when she got married. Like, and now your daughter's on this podcast, like, a huge jump, you know, so it's like, of course, that conditioning doesn't wipe away in one generation the way that we, you know, continue to put, as a woman, continue to put ourselves in the cage. You know, like, I recognize in myself of, like, you know, the conditioning of, like, well, if you're too big, you'll never find someone. Oh, if you're too emotional, if you're too expressed, if you're too successful, if you're too anything, limit yourself, go back into the cage, because then you'll be safe and secure and someone will choose you. But it's like, you can't. Especially, like, when you realize you're a lion, you can't go back into a cage. But again, it comes to that question that I think a lot of women are in of, like, then do I just stay in my solitude and stay in my truth? And because I think simultaneously we want love and we want partnership. And you know, I see like a lot of this like self love movement is like you're all that you need forever. And it's like, right. And it's like you don't. You actually do need other humans, you know, it's like telling someone you don't need friends, like, be your own best friend. It's like, be your own best friend. And like, you need friends, you know, and we, we need each other. But it almost feels like the, the feminine yearning is so like, deep that like, if you allow yourself to feel that like, yearning to be met and it's not there, it. That feeling for a woman feels like it could swallow you.

So can you tell me a little bit more about. Does it just really feel like something's missing and is. Is painful?

Yeah, like, to me, I mean, I've been really. Do you listen to like David Data or do you ever like dive into that work?

He's made the way of the superior man.

Yeah, well, yeah, that's his. So he touches upon some of this and sort of like to me, what the feminine yearning feels like is like this desire to merge with consciousness and like this desire to be one with God and worship God through another and to like, you know, for a woman sexually, it's like you're opening yourself up, you're surrendering, you're giving. So it's like you want to give yourself to someone that you see as like holy, you know, and like that you want to. To essentially, yeah, like devote yourself to. And that is that yearning to what is love? It's like merging. It's like going back to the womb when you were like one with everything. But I think woman, you can't fake that, you know, so then, woman, they want the intimacy, they want the connection. But then do I see this man as God? Fuck no. You know, so it's either like disassociate, you know, and because you just want physical intimacy, disconnect from your heart, which is a lot of this, like the sex positive movement is just like you just, you know, fuck like a man, you know, And I don't think women want that. But then it's like. Or wait until you meet someone who you see as divinity, but you might be waiting forever. And so what a lot of conversations I'm having with women who are like deep on the spiritual path. Of like, I might be the lady with the cats, the shaman ess, the witch in the in the woods who's like, I won't lower my standards. But that's like the deepest fear. It's not what we want, but it's like, but are you willing to lower your standards?

Hopefully you will not have to lower your standards. That's why I'm so excited for more men to know about this work. Thank you for sharing that. I'm feeling so much from your energy there and so many things I'm feeling. I'll try to unpack it. Women are born to be receptive. Not just receptive, they have masculine energy too. But the way your body is carved is that you're designed to receive a masculine physically. Not only receive him, but take his seed and make new life with it. That is phenomenal. So that is the yearning for receiving something divine. And there's nothing wrong with seeing a man as divine or a God, just like he should see you as a goddess, because together you are that. If we didn't have an overload of information now, we didn't know the science behind life, we would just think, Jesus Christ. A woman and a man get together. The woman creates new life from his seed. Oh, fuck, that's magical. That's divine. So, yeah, those are appropriate terms and appropriate yearnings. And the pain I feel for women right now is that they're having this awakening. God, we've been oppressed. God, we're not being emotionally heard. We've taken care of our physical safety now. So we don't want that from a man. We want more. And they're struggling to give it. And on top of that, I've got my unhealed trauma from my mothers and fathers having a tough time dealing with that. So you guys work on your own stuff. I work on mine. And I hear that that's what a lot of women are doing. Is it a solution? Obviously not. It's happening right now. The only way that we're all going to thrive is in union together. We're both halves of the whole on a biological level. So it's that. That togetherness just feels. It's beautiful, right? It's like when you see your mom and dad happies and you get that indescribable feeling as a child. That's what we're always pursuing, and there's nothing wrong with that. So these new age quotes that you're all you need are utter bullshit. I would even call them toxic because they go against the nature of the universe. Why would you do that? So there's no black and white solution that I can. I can see, other than as we all heal, more magic is going to happen. It's. It's looking good, man. Like, where we are right now, we have so much more. We've created so much more safety. You and me sitting here having this conversation from different parts of the world. We can do that. We can spread healing and knowledge. I hope that a lot of men and women hearing this begin to have more patience and empathy for each other based on our generational trauma. And that is what will help the women eventually to satisfy those yearnings. Like, maybe a woman spends some time healing, understanding the trauma of men. Next time she comes across a man who's appearing narcissistic, she's not just like that guy, red flag, red flag. She's like, ah, okay, that's what that is. Yes. Now I feel powerful enough to see if there are any openings where he's willing to grow as a man. If he's not, no problem. But at least you don't need to act like the world's come to an end and you need to be an old woman with nine cats or whatever. There are possibilities all around us.

But do you. Do you think as women, we actually can be a man's healer and that he would even want that? That.

No, not if I implied healer there. That's not what I meant. Co creator, encourager of healing. Is there an opening in him where he's willing to be more emotionally connected? Is he receptive to a conversation about it? And can women be an inspiration for that? Absolutely. Because you know what? This is something that all men feel, by the way. So men love to be inspired by a woman and slightly challenged. If that challenge is not criticism, that challenge is a way to love her better. Hey, I feel that if you did this, you would be able to protect me better. You'd be able to love me better. The problem with modern dating and extremist feminism is that when women act like they, I don't need a man. When they come with that energy, I mean, it's debilitating for men. Okay, cool. Now what? Then? You've just closed off that beautiful, receptive nature that you have. So keep it open. Open. That's what I think. Keep it open, keep it warm, keep it beautiful, keep it inviting.

So do you believe that men that exhibit narcissistic traits then can change?

Absolutely. Yeah. Because I'm one of them. Yeah. So I come from that background and I've Helped my father a lot. He's come a hell of a long way. And other men that have worked me, I've seen it in them. So I don't really buy into anything that mainstream psychology says because it's so, so hard and intellectual. The first thing you're going to see is that, yeah, bleak chances. 97% chance that a man with NPD will ever change. No, I think the chances are way higher than that.

But do you think that, like, that narcissism is this clinical condition or you think it's just a label?

It's just a label. It's just. When I say ignorant, I'm not being in any way condescending. I'm just trying to be factual. It's. It's these hardcore labels that we prescribe to people's, like I said, symptoms of millions of years of evolution. Who are you to be born in this time after millions of years of evolution, to come along and say, yep, slap on the term narcissism, he's screwed, he's gone. How arrogant is that?

Do you think that at some level all men that are have narcissistic traits?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the thing too. Cause I'm like, so they're all narcissists. Maybe they're just men.

Yeah, exactly. So two men walk in right now with knives. Between the three of us in here, who's going to be most likely to stand up and protect the room whilst likely the females are screaming? I'm not saying about that you anything personal, but in general, that's what women do, right? Panic and get emotional and be scared for their safety. And that's actually what inspires men to step up. And for a man to do that, he has to disconnect for a moment from all the rational, logical, physical, emotional parts of him that fear being hurt and just think, squash the threat. So that mindset of squash the threat was the most beneficial one and it's lived on and it continues to today. Look at, like millionaires or the best athletes, they're obsessed with killing the competition. That, to me, is the narcissistic trait.

Yeah, you're really opening my mind here because I was like, I need to change and end. I even wrote this thing, no more narcissistic men. And I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe it's just. But again, it's like hard because it's like you don't want to invite in those dynamics again either.

No. Yeah, but empathy doesn't mean inviting. Empathy means understanding.

But to me, the Fact that you were even interested in learning about empathy means you're, like, not a narcissist. Yeah, like a true narcissist doesn't want to learn.

That's why I have a problem with conventional psychology, because they make up things and then classify as a solid conclusion. Why would you do that? So, you see, because people who don't, Haven't. Don't have a good level of awareness. I think that I am gifted since I was young. There is a certain level of awareness that I have that most men won't, but many men do. And so when we come along and people with qualifications say things like, yeah, NPD means that they just can't change. They don't have empathy. You know what happens to the men who have those labels? They actually believe that. And so any chance of empathy that they do have, they surgically remove it from themselves. Oh, the expert said, I'm npd. I must be. So we're actually killing them off. It's insane, Effy.

Can it come from someone else to bring into the awareness of someone that they're lacking empathy? Or does it just have to come from them going on the journey themselves?

I feel that the primary source it comes from is others, because all men, all humans have hearts they love as well. Despite I feel that women have always been the gatekeepers of love and feminine energy. Men have it, too. Absolutely. And so those brief moments when he's in his heart and he's relaxed and he sees that his woman is in pain, it's inspiring. You know, it can be very inspiring. But can I answer which is the main one? Does it come from within or from within? I can't answer that. I think it's different for everyone, but both will work.

Yeah, I noticed it's so much also the energy that you give off someone mirrors back. Like, you know, for me, going through my divorce, like the times that I was in my anger and defensiveness, he would be in his anger and defensiveness. And. And then I would just be the do the ho' opon ono of like, please forgive me. I forgive you. I thank you. I love you. And then he would just respond that back to me. I'm like, you're literally just mirroring anything I do right now. But it's like he's just a hurt, wounded child that's just falling back. And, you know, and it's been a journey that. To be able to be on good terms, but, you know, but it's like, ultimately, I think we're all just trying to preserve Ourselves. And we're all also the heroes of our own story that, you know, we're all gonna do the things that make the sense for us. I just think it's hard because women, whether it's a combination of biological and the way that we've been conditioned, is like, we do put other people's needs before our own. So when we see men aren't like that, we're like, how did you not think about how I felt? And it's just not. Not the primary thing that men tend to think about.

Yeah. Yeah. One of the big problems in relationships is that we go in expecting our partner to think the way we think and also to know what wounds we have and to heal our wounds and not really ask for too much in return. So we go in with enormous expectations. We really, when we're not awakened, we go into relationships expecting our partner to soothe and heal our unmet childhood needs. Needs. And that's why this work is so precious, you know? That's why it's so precious. Effy, Effy, Effy.

So for people who are wanting to maybe have a conversation, do you have any good, like, prompts or something to open a man up to diving deeper into himself and his empathy?

Oh, good question. If it's for a man, you have to calibrate your approach to how defensive he tends to be. So if he's an ultra defensive man who just. Just on, you know, God, straight away, man. Yeah. Like, you've got your work out for you. You're gonna have to choose the times where he is feeling as in his heart as you can find him. That's where his guards are going to be low. So he's feeling loved. It doesn't mean you need to, like, please him and suck up to him. It just means search for those times where there's authentic connection and he's open. And so the way I would say it, the way I would address it for a man is, is what kind of example do you want to work with? Do you want to give me an example of what you want to achieve from this interaction with the man?

Let's say it's a woman. She has kids, and she feels like she's bearing the grunt of the work, and she's there for the family, and she's there, and there's like. And then the guy comes home from work, is emotionally cut off, you know, does his thing, is on his phone, and she's missing the lack of love attention, but she also doesn't want to, like, make him give it because then.

Yeah. So the first thing is not to use critical statements, criticism. So one way you could easily say that this would be justified is I'm exhausted from being with the kids all the time and you've got all this free time and you're being selfish. Heavy words. Even if you catch the man in his most loving space, that's going to put his guard right up. So coming from the energy of love and inspiring him to be a better version of himself, to love you better is the thing that's going to give you the highest chance. Because he gets to feel like a hero again. He gets to feel like he's been there for his woman, which is really a sweet thing. So instead of saying, I hate it when you're never here, I would love it if you were around us more often. That's such a simple way to do it. Or say, you've got a kid. You know, our son. Son was feeling so confident and uplifted when you were here for those extra two minutes the other day. And you might not even need to say, can you give more time or can you help so I can shower and go out. He might start volunteering it. You have to calibrate and see. But it comes from loving inspiration. Effy.

Yeah. Positive enforcement and. Yeah. And I think having them see that, that you want to be around them, it's coming from a place of love. It's not, you're not giving me enough. It's, I love being around you, you know, which is like the highest form of compliment. Someone wanting to spend their time with you. But for whatever reason in relationships, it sometimes feels like this, like, I have to give rather than like, oh, but you guys chose to spend the rest of your lives together. Like it should be from coming from a place of the heart.

Yeah, exactly. And that's one place where so many couples go wrong. Like, I love books for this reason. There are books with therapists who have worked married couples for 40 odd years. And you can read these books. And the thing that comes out is always the same thing that couples get into this competitive mindset, which, which you've just said is like, oh, I have to do more for you. But you did the. You know, we're counting the things that we've done for each other. And instead we need to look at. If you can look at your partner as yourself, you'd never want to hurt them. You'd never want to criticize them. Because if I criticize her, I'm criticizing me. If I hurt her, I'm Hurting me. If I uplift her, I'm uplifting me. And the way I see it, that's the best way to. That's. That's been for me personally as well. I'm not in a relationship right now, but in my recent one, that's been the way to. It's. It was magical because there's just no tension, no negativity. Nothing is left under the carpet. Amazing soft communication and considering each other's well being as a priority instead of. When we have unhealed wounds, we really look to punish our partner when they haven't met our needs. Sneaky ways to. I'm going to withdraw what they love. I'm going to take longer to text back. I'm just going to give them silent treatment. These are the wounded in a child lashing at the other in an attempt to be loved. But if we see the other as ourself. No, you, you don't want to hurt them.

Yeah. Just to remember these. The inner child in every person. I sat with Ayahuasca for the first time in May and it took me to my childhood and the ways that I felt like just like misunderstood. I was very spiritual as a child and always like, you know, seeing spirits and talking about them and in my own world and my parents again, my dad was like a scientist and so I felt very misunderstood. And then it took me into my dad's childhood of why he was like this and how he was this like overachieving kid who, who thought if he was just the best in everything, he would get his parents love. But they had their own stuff going on. So I was like, how do we heal? My dad took me to my grandma's childhood and I watched her child marriage unfold. And it literally took me into watching her like playing outside with her sisters and her dad doing a business deal with my grandfather. And after the business deal being like, choose one of my daughters to marry. And he's like, I'll choose the tall one. And he's like, oh, she's a little young. And he's like, oh, I don't. And mind, mind, like as if it's, you know. And then my grandmother, who she would always tell me the story of like begging her father like, please, I don't want to marry this stranger man. And her dad being like, no, he's really honest. He's very hardworking, He's a great man. And how traumatic that was for her. So then I was like, well, how do we heal her inner child? And then took me to my Grandfather's childhood. And when he was six years old, he was living in Esfahan, Iran. And basically he walked in these things.

You saw when you were.

I saw all of this and I got it all fact checked. It was all real. Yeah. And he walked into the market stand that his parents had and his mom was about to die of an opium like overdose. Because in Iran people would smoke opium, it was very normal there. And the six year old boy saw his mom was about to die and he was so scared and his dad was like, we don't have money for medicine. You need to work this standard stand. So this little boy is just working and working and trying as hard as he can and he makes enough money for the stand. And the mom gets medicine and she gets better. So dad's like, good job, now take care of the neighbor stand. And then the neighbors are like, wow, you're such a good businessman. And by the time he was 12 years old, he owned all of the stands in that market in Esfahad. And he became a businessman and, you know, by the time he was 20, he became an international businessman. And then he bought all of the, the leftover military uniforms from World War I and like just became this like huge international businessman. But had this like inner child story of if I don't work all the time, the people around me will die.

Exactly.

So he has this story of I have to work all the time or the people around me will die. So he doesn't have time for his wife. She has the story of men never notice me, they don't love me. My dad has a story of my parents don't even pay attention to me. I have to be perfect. I have this story of no one understands me. And it's just like all the hurt energy, children, you know. And then I was like, shit, what do we do? But then it showed me how all of our gifts were interconnected and came from that trauma of like, you know, my soul chose to teach people about spirituality. So I needed to choose a father that, you know, I, I got to see the dynamics of what it's like to have like a father with narcissistic traits and, you know, the dynamics it created in my family and becoming very empath and becoming very sensitive and attuned, but also his hard work and his resilience to be able to wr books and create a business and do all of the things. And my dad chose his dad because of his resilience and how we wouldn't have any of the Dharma without the trauma. And then it showed me, like, all of my ancestors, like, around Pride Rock, like, in Lion King, and they're, like, singing, and they're like. And it's all perfect. And then the ceremony ended, and it was like, you wouldn't want to change any of the trauma because you wouldn't be you.

God, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. So this is what you saw after drinking? I always. Oscar, you know what? I'm getting, like, goosebumps and emotions hearing that, because I feel everything you're saying every step of the way. And what's really crazy is I get visions like this day in and day out, naturally. That's just my gift. And when I work with clients and I take them into inner child healing, I close my eyes and I'm with them. I feel everything they went through. And that's how I've gathered such a huge database and understanding now of how trauma came to be. And it's just getting wider and wider. I haven't looked into plant medicine myself yet. It sounds beautiful. I feel like it opens something within us. That thing that it opens in us. I feel we already have. We are a walking record of the past. And if we sit, with enough time and stillness, we can read into our past. I'll give you a funny example to add a bit of dark humor to all of this. I was once asking myself, why?

Why?

Why are men so much physically stronger than women? Would you be able to guess? So we can hold onto them and fornicate and force them if we need to, to produce children? I know that sounds crazy, right? But it's true. I don't know how I can tell you this is true. It just is. I googled it, like, years after having that realization to check if any scientists agree with me. And they do. Evolutionary scientists do. Because, again, the reason men have such a strong sex drive is to keep the human race alive. They don't see it as noble as that way. They just want to get some pleasure. But nature has built that into us as a mechanism so that we can keep the species alive. Because if women get tied and they turn into fast runners and they have elaborate ways of keeping the crazy men away, guess what? The species dies out. So men had to be able to overpower women. This is just history.

Why don't they just give them poetry and a guitar? It would have been a lot easier.

So we can read into these things. And coming back to your experience from the ayahuasca, it is so beautiful, because. Yeah, that's why I say trauma is not really an appropriate word. It's a sacred movement of energy. Basically, we live in a world of duality. Men did historically one thing, women did the other. And it caused a lot of wounding and a lot of stories, narratives that. The men have the narrative that I must do more, otherwise my mom, my daughter dies. The women have the narrative, I'm not being seen. And it creates resentment. But, you know, Sahara, something beautiful is coming in the next chapter. Like, we're in this unique place where we're awakening from all this. Millions of years of generational trauma. I'm excited about what's next. We don't know what's next. It's the unknown. But something incredible is coming.

No, I. I believe so. I mean, we're having conversations like this, and, you know, and it's ultimately the story that we tell ourselves about the past is whether it creates an imprint of trauma or that. For me, having that experience of. I could tell the story that my grandma told me, your grandfather raped me, and it was against my will. And that could be the story, or it could be the story of her father loved her so much that he wanted her to marry the best man that he knew so she would be safe. And that's what the cultural norms were at the time, you know, and it's like, which story empowers you? And, like, that actually creates, like, the epigenetic effect that the memory has in you and your lineage. So it's like to. To take upon these cultural norms so it's not this, like, horrific, wrong thing, but rather, like, yes, we've progressed, and this is the best that people could do at that time. And people are gonna look on our practices today and be like, oh, my God, they were so traumatized. Like, I gotta heal for my crazy grandparents. And it was like, things that, like, we just think are normal, you know?

I love that. Yeah. So the key to what I'm feeling there is just stop judging. Yes, again, who are we to judge? Just leave the judgment out.

Exactly.

Just even throw away the concept of good and bad. That doesn't mean turn a blind eye to abuse, but throw away the concept of good and bad. And that leads me onto something that, like, you know, morality and religion actually led to a lot of oppression. It did build civilization with necessary laws. But I feel religion is only necessarily when spirituality is absolutely. So if you're actually conscious and present, you can feel your oneness with others. You can feel the emotions of others. You don't want to do obscene things. You actually want others to prosper automatically. The protective laws come from within you. But if you don't have that, if you're run by the primitive ego that just wants to mindlessly fornicate, steal, gather resources at the expense of others, then we need laws to control that crazy apart.

Yeah, it took us ahead from where we were and now we no longer need it. It was like training wheels and we've outgrown it.

We still need it right now for most people, but.

Yeah, but I. I do feel like there is a collective awakening out of religion in this, like, you know, patriarchal, kind of like, doctrinized way. And instead looking at like, what is my religion in terms of nature, in terms of the cycles of the moon and the seasons and, you know, coming back to Earth and. And I feel that this is all part of it because that brings the feminine back. Like, that has always been feminine spirituality, you know, and when we start to revere Earth and revere woman and revere intuition and wisdom, we will naturally respect women in our society so much more.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. We live in a world right now that's completely dominated by masculine energy. That doesn't mean men. It means the energy of conquest, gathering resources and inflating your mental sense of self. That is masculine energy. It's a survival function. That's why more people are now stressed than ever before. And that's why we're basically raping the planet for more, bigger pockets, more profits. And we're literally destroying the creatures on this planet that are feeding our lungs, the plants and the trees. We wouldn't be alive if it were not for them. Now if we bring more feminine energy back into the hearts of men and women, we're going to say, what the hell, hell, madness are we doing? Let's keep our ancestors alive who are the pants plants and the trees, and let's cherish Mother Earth. Let's. Let's do things in a way that's sustainable for everyone. And let's reduce these damn work hours. Nobody wants to work 9 to 5. It's done for a deliberate reason. And let's enjoy life more and enjoyment presence and love, our feminine energies. And if we have more of that within us, this life will get more beautiful. Beautiful.

And I feel like it's happening. I saw this vision of my future life once, and I was like, living in the jungle and it's like this ancient future that we're like, bringing forward these ancient ways. And we're living with the land and the earth and the tribe, and we're Raising our children together. And I really believe that many of us are awakening to this reality and that we are going to, in our lifetimes experience this. I don't think everyone's going to choose that, but I believe that, that there is this renaissance of ancient technology and wisdom that is like dormant codes within us that's like coming online. And maybe in real time, people are having these like awakenings within themselves. And we are here to bring back our ancestral. And when I say ancestral, not like our grandparents, but like our many, many generations back when there was more balance between the masculine and the feminine. And we're bringing back this energy of sacred union within ourselves, within partnerships, within, within Earth and star. I'm excited. I think we're going to experience it in our lifetime.

Man, I would love that. It's so beautiful. My favorite thing to do right now because that's what I've done. I've basically reclaimed my lost feminine energy. And nothing gives me more pleasure than admiring the sky or breathing with a tree. I'm breathing in what the tree is giving out. And I see them as people now.

I'm like, they all have personalities.

Thank you so much for what you've done for us. And brings a level of fulfillment that goes way beyond like how many followers you've got, how many money, how much money you're making. And when you become conscious of that realm, you become more aware of the. The masculine energy, the ego that does want to kind of hustle harder with the culture that we propagate now and just run for growth that doesn't even give you fulfillment. And that place where I want us all to be is the balance where we can have it all. We can have financial abundance, but we can have. We can look after the earth and nature and connection as well. And. Oh God, yeah. You know, when we say. I would love to see that. Here's a funny thing. If you look at the indigenous tribes of the world that were wiped out by the. The modern, basically the west, really the largest kingdoms that started conquering the world. The British Empire controlled, I think, 20 to 25% of the world's population at their highest heights. Unbelievably impressive, monumental ambition to do that. So they have very rich records of what life was really like in the last remaining indigenous tribes. Now I would look at that and ask myself, why did people from a very small island get the ambition and desire to sail for miles and miles and miles, risking their lives to gather these resources and all that? And it was just the over development of the ego that our race must prosper and crush everyone else. We must be the best. And when they got to these places, these people did not think like them. That's why they could extort them. Because people who lived on the land, people who were one with the land. There was a quote that I think it was Christopher Columbus had when he went to, I think it was south or Middle America. An indigenous tribesman said, I don't know what it is with these white people. Their face always looks worried, they always want something more. So that endless craving for more to fill that void from within. This is not in any way a racist comment. I do believe that the over development of masculine energy, of the ego has originated in the west and, and it's in the east. And the indigenous people who were exemplary of being at one with life, being present. We don't need to conquer the world. We're happy with what we've got. Give me some trees, farm food and my family, I'm happy. So the two energies were quite opposing, unfortunately. The masculine energy crushed the feminine out through brutality. And even by doing that now in the modern places where they're reaping the treasures of what they've built in Western countries, they've got everything, all the technology, all the comfort, all the convenience, but empty inside because they don't know anything about their consciousness and feminine energy. So by default the ego collapses anyway because it gets everything it wants and then it realizes I'm still not happy. So now I'm forced to become spiritual and meditate and do breath work. And that's what's happening in the west now. So the universe had that plan all along. That's what I, I feel.

Yeah, it's like Maslow's hierarchy, you know.

I've not heard of that, but is that what it means?

Yeah, he has these like five developments of self actualization. And it's like you have your basic needs met, you know, survival, and then you have your wants and then you have some luxuries. And then even once you have the luxuries, you're still going to reach for self actualization, which is to know thyself. And you know, right now we're kind of seeing collectively some countries going through their industrial revolution right now of like, they don't have their wants, you know, so it's just like I see in India they often emulate the west, and then in the west they emulate the east. But then eventually, you know, you like will get the job, the money, the white picket house, whatever the thing is. And there will still be that void inside of you. But sometimes people need to go on that journey. And sometimes it's hard for us that we see like maybe our siblings or someone that we love or they're still in that hunt. And you just have to. To trust that people will find that nectar and divine time, whether it's in this lifetime or another.

Exactly. The word trust is key without trying to control it, without trying to judge it. And I have to admit, like, once you get on your spiritual awakening, there's a lot of like spiritual ego that comes so much. You know, you start wanting to fix and change and that makes you suffer. And you sometimes end up looking down on people who are in the more you could say primitive mindsets. Like, oh, they're not spiritual if they're still doing this. You know, it's just.

And it's a cycle. You know, it's like you like imagine we were all living in the jungle, eating food from the earth, living in tribes, and then we like created these skyscrapers and nine to five jobs and this nut. And now we just want to go back to the. It's just like, okay, was it. But. But then. But we're coming back with the experience and the gems and like taking the things that like act picking and choosing.

What helps us get wiser.

Exactly.

We get wiser and we. We understand how to harness what we've got in here and not get lost in materialism, but also not think that the only best way to live is just being so called spiritual. Because that can be an ego trip as well. So it's just finding what really, really works best for you, I believe. Effy.

Yes. Well, beautiful. Thank you so much for this wisdom. You really opened my mind to looking at narcissism and people pleasing in a more expanded perspective. So I really appreciate that. And where can listeners connect with you and learn more from you?

So my Instagram is my photo first name Ehsun Anwar Essen Anwar. And I have a YouTube channel as well. Life coach Essen. I believe along those lines. And those are the two main channels. And this has been a fun conversation. I learned a lot from your perspectives as well and it was enriching. Thank you for having me on my first ever podcast as well.

Well, thank you so much for being here and if you loved this episode, please leave a review for it in the itunes store and share it with some friends. This is such a great of opening your perspective and share with your partner if you're dating someone. Like, this is such a powerful way to like actually have these conversations of hey, what did you get from this podcast? Did you resonate with what they said about this or that? Sometimes it's helpful to have, like, someone else say those things so it doesn't feel so direct. Unless they're listening to this. If they send it to you, they love you so much. No problem. And leave a review for it in the iTunes store. That's how we share it with more people. So as a free gift, I will send you my Womb Meditation, which is meditation that you can do to connect to your sacred womb space and receive her answers. So just leave a review for it on the iTunes store. Take a screenshot and email it over to me@saharaamsaharose.com you can find that email and all of the links mentioned in the show. Notes. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you in the next one. Trust your intuition Trust your inner wisdom Trust your inner guidance Close your eyes and listen. So trust your intuition. Just trust you in the wisdom Trust you in the guidance.