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Table of Contents
An Introduction To Orna and Matthew Walters ........................................................................................ 3
What Is A Soul Mate? .............................................................................................................................................. 4
The Most Important Ingredient: He Is Not You........................................................................................... 5
Orna And Matthew’s Story Will Give You Hope .......................................................................................... 7
The Funhouse Mirror........................................................................................................................................... 11
When You Dislike His Behavior....................................................................................................................... 13
The Right Man Heals You And You Heal Him............................................................................................ 16
How To Stop Arguing And ................................................................................................................................. 21
Get Love Flowing ................................................................................................................................................... 21
Worksheet ................................................................................................................................................................ 28
Steps To Emotional Authenticity.................................................................................................................... 28
Healing And Moving On From Heartbreak................................................................................................. 30
Bad Boys And Good Guys ................................................................................................................................... 35
Run From Intensity – It’s Your Clue That Something Is Wrong ........................................................ 40
Curiosity Makes A Real Connection............................................................................................................... 42
Marrying Yourself ................................................................................................................................................. 44
Is There Only One Soulmate ............................................................................................................................. 48
For You?..................................................................................................................................................................... 48
Becoming Soulmates From Where You Are Now.................................................................................... 51
Meeting Your Soulmate....................................................................................................................................... 53
You Can’t Say The Wrong Thing To The Right Man................................................................................ 58
About Orna And Matthew.................................................................................................................................. 61
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An Introduction To Orna and Matthew Walters
e at LoveRomanceRelationship.com recently had the great fortune to interview the “power couple” of relationship experts – Orna and Matthew Walters. The
interview was so spectacular, so incredibly amazing and deeply helpful, we decided to offer it to you as both a book and as an interview.
The book has been expanded upon, added to and organized a bit differently from the interview – and so we encourage you to both read the book and listen to the interview. We considered this to be a life-‐changing self-‐help book, and look forward to hearing from you how it’s working for you.
Orna and Matthew work with women all over the world, using what they call the “Tools of Transformation,” and they will share them with you here, to help you quickly break the old patterns that are keeping you from receiving the one thing that we’re all looking for, which is of course love.
Sincerely,
LoveRomanceRelationship
W
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What Is A Soul Mate?
Matthew: So, the way we look at soul mates is not necessarily there is one soul out there for you in this vast sea of the billions of people on the planet and you’re in some way going to stumble upon them.
The way we always think of and talk about a soul mate partnership is this idea of two people who are on a path of growth.
Spiritual growth, personal growth, whatever that is for each of them. And they come together in relationship to support each other in the continuation of that growth.
This idea that we’re here on Earth school and that we’re meant to learn something and that one of the things we’re meant to learn is how to be in relationship and what being in relationship can teach us more about ourselves.
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The Most Important Ingredient: He Is Not You
Steve: So, what is the one thing, what’s the one ingredient that you feel that is important in a relationship?
Orna: Well, the really most important ingredient to any successful relationship – we could talk about intimate relationship, but really in any relationship, whether that’s boss/coworker, husband/wife, mother/child, whatever it might be is – it’s going to sound really simple and we’re happy to elaborate on it, but really that one key ingredient is to remember that the other person is not you.
Matthew: And what we mean by that, that the other person is not you, is that the other person has their own set of experiences, their own set of beliefs, their own internal experience of the world and their own opinions and everything else.
Oftentimes, when we get in relationship, we expect that other person to think the way we think and to feel the way we feel. Then we make assumptions about that other person -‐ that they’re thinking and feeling exactly what we’re thinking and feeling.
Orna: And that assumption can really be a big problem and create a lot of issues once you’re in a relationship. When you take this idea that the other person is not you -‐ and you really look at it from an objective perspective -‐ you can think of it all as if it’s an “eyewitness account. “
There’s a bank robbery and the police go and interview 20 people who say the event happen and they may get 20 very different stories. That’s because our own individual filter is set when we’re very young. We’re filtering for certain information, and that’s the way we move through the world.
It’s possible to shift that inner filter, but to do it takes work, effort and conscious intention.
So, when we’re in relationship, you go to bed next to the same person every night. You wake up next to them every morning and we start to
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take on this idea that that person is moving through the world the way we are. And actually -‐ we’re not.
We’re moving through the world very differently. Remembering that the other person is not you, and cultivating being curious about where your partner is – that’s really a great ingredient to having a successful and happy relationship.
Love Languages
Steve: Yeah. That is a very good point. I fortunately learned that to a degree and noticed that, different people receive love or perceive love in a different way. For example, my ex-wife needed gifts and for me gifts mean nothing. You can give me a new Maserati and I would say, “Well, that’s nice, but it doesn’t make me feel loved.”
For me, feeling love is having something being done for me - and for her that was not as important. So, that perception of somebody being a completely different person is made clearer if you pay attention to how they need to receive and give love.
Matthew: And that pattern about how we receive and give love is something that’s determined very early on. It’s determined from our family of origin and whoever raised us – our parents, or if we were in some other environment with grandparents or foster parents, or family or strangers.
We learn how to receive love from those people and we reenact those same versions of either getting love or not getting love in the same way when we get into intimate relationships as adults.
“Well, that’s nice, but it doesn’t make me feel loved...
”
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Orna And Matthew’s Story Will Give You Hope
Steve: True. So, how is it for you guys? You were saying that you were intentionally aiming to end up in a good relationship, but you both took different pathways. I’m curious what those two different paths were.
Orna: For me, I had a really rough go at it. And certainly everybody has their story -‐ and there are certainly stories that are worse than mine.
Orna’s Story
Getting Away From Drama And Abuse
Orna: I know mine is pretty dramatic, and I know of some even more dramatic. I grew up in a home with a lot of abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse
I found myself in my 20’s in a relationship with a guy who I thought was going to be the guy. I felt like I’d moved a lot of obstacles out of the way to even get into that relationship, and on New Year’s Eve of 1994, that boyfriend actually beat me up.
It was really the wakeup call of a lifetime. I was just so crushed and leaving that relationship. I left. I never had another conversation with him again and in that process I felt just incredibly damaged. I’ve always been smart. I’m well educated.
I graduated from UCLA with honors and I was moving well in my business world and moving forward and creating really great things and it just baffled me that how was it possible for me to end up in a relationship with somebody who would harm me when that was the last thing that I desired.
So, it was at that point that I realized that was is familiar to us is the strongest force when we talk about intimate relationship. So, what was
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familiar to me was that abuse cycle and so, I then attracted that abuse cycle.
So, I started in regular therapy. I had some really great luck ending up with some really great therapists and got a lot of help, but at that point I really was like I wanted somebody else to pick a mate for me, like an arranged marriage sounded like a good idea.
I was like, “Oh, my picker is broken. I don’t know how to pick somebody,” and I felt really damaged and really broken.
Seeking The Unavailable Man
I started reading a lot of books and going to a lot of workshops and staying in therapy and doing group therapy and individual therapy, and I remember I got to a certain point where I really identified what my pattern was in relationship very specifically.
One of the things that showed up again and again was a man who was unavailable.
Either literally unavailable, like in a relationship with someone else -‐ or a man who was emotionally unavailable or an addict.
Water Seeks Its Own Level – Mr. Right Is Like You In Important Ways
So, when I realized that, I remember going into therapy that specific day and saying, “I’m really broken. I’m attracted to men who are unavailable. How am I ever supposed to end up in a relationship?” And I remember my therapist.
She smiled at me and it was so sweet. I can remember seeing her smile and her words exactly. She said, “Oh, Orna, look at you. You’re doing all of this work on yourself right now. Don’t you know there’s a man out there doing work on himself, so that he’s available to be with you.”
She described this idea of how “water seeks its own level” in relationship.
How we value ourselves is really how we receive anything, whether that’s love or wealth or health, and what I realized is that in this process I was literally raising the level at which I valued me -‐ and so, I
“My picker is broken...I don’t know how to
pick somebody...”
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was raising that water level, so to speak. And, low and behold, when I came together with Matthew, that’s when I realized: Wow.
Here was this guy doing work to get to me as well.
We met at the top of that mountain, so to speak, to have this really true soul partnership.
I’ll let Matthew tell his story.
Matthew’s Story
Self-Rejection
Matthew: Sure. So, part of it, just to share what Orna said about being attracted to unavailable men is -‐ I’ve been sober for eight years now and used to be that guy.
I used to be that guy who 1] was attracted to unavailable women, and also 2] was not attracted to women who were interested in me.
It was always this game of me saying, “Alright. I’ll get into a relationship with you, but it’s not going to work out.” I’d say that from the start -‐ and then the woman would always look at me like, “I’ll prove it differently.”
It became sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. I’d find a way to end that relationship. When I really, finally began to look at my own story, my own role in this (and part of it was starting to turn 35 and realizing that my life really wasn’t what I expected it to be), it became important to me to be happy in my life.
A lot of it was looking at what I was doing to create unhappiness.
The big piece of this relationship puzzle was how I was being in relationship. What I finally got was the understanding that the role I was playing was one of self rejection.
The way it looked was: I’d seek out women who would reject me, and then I would reject women who would be interested in me. But really – it was all about me rejecting myself.
“It was always this game of me saying,
“Alright. I’ll get into a
relationship with you, but it’s not going to work out.”...”
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Self-Acceptance
So, for me that journey became one of self acceptance.
Part of it was the spiritual journey of studying meditation and yoga, and another part of it was getting into my own form of therapy. I found a hypnotherapist and I liked the fact that she said “We’re going to move very quickly through stuff.”
So, I ended up pursuing hypnotherapy as a career as well, because I found that those tools were so effective in helping me let go of so much of my past story. I also did a lot of other work.
I did a lot of visualization. I did a lot of journaling, writing lists, all of that kind of stuff. But it really was the process of “looking at” the internal work that needed to be done, what I needed to “release,” that made the difference. And for me, it happened in the last relationship before I met my wife.
I was dating this really wonderful woman who physically is a similar type to my wife. She was a yoga teacher. She was a meditator. She lived a very green lifestyle riding her bike everywhere and I thought, “Wow. This is perfect for me externally,” but she had this thing of saying, “Wow. You’re a really great guy, but....”
And there was always a “but....” There was always something that she didn’t like about me and me being the person I was, I was always going and finding my coaches or going and finding my mentors and saying, “There’s this thing I want to fix. This thing I want to change.”
We did this dance for about three months before I finally woke up one day and went, “You know what? There really isn’t anything wrong with me. I’m just not the right guy for her and she’s not the right person for me, so I need to stop playing this game.”
That’s when I stepped aside and really looked at “What’s this final piece of self acceptance I need in order to get out of this cycle,” and -‐ literally -‐ it was within two weeks that I met Orna. I started really focusing on shifting that last little bit inside of me, and there she was.
I always say that early on in our relationship she said to me, “You’re perfect for me exactly as you are. I don’t need you to change,” and there was such a release and a relief and a relaxation on my body and my soul. I was like, “Oh yeah. That’s what I’ve been creating inside of me and now I get it reflected back to me.”
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The Funhouse Mirror
Steve: So, you’re saying the relationship we have with ourselves is really the key to feeling love and finding your soul mate. Can we expand on that some more?
Orna: Absolutely. Our intimate relationship is something that is really a reflection of what’s going on inside of us. So, if we have a great rapport with ourselves, if we really love and approve and accept all of the parts of us and we know there’s lots of parts to us.
We’re complex as human beings. There’s good, there’s bad and there may even be ugly parts -‐ but if we really accept all of us, if we really love all of the parts of us, that’s when we can meet someone else and experience that unconditional love we’re looking for.
If we can experience that part of us that really loves all of us -‐ exactly as we are, even with our imperfections – then we open the door for someone else to love all of us, even with our imperfections.
We like to say we’re perfectly imperfect.
That’s when someone shows up and reflects the love that’s within us, back to us.
So, it’s like a mirror. But it’s not a mirror like in your bathroom that’s a direct reflection. We like to say it’s more like a funhouse mirror. When you look in the eyes of your beloved, you’re seeing reflected back to you the love that’s inside of you, but it’s distorted. It’s like a funhouse mirror.
You stand there at the funhouse and you’ve got this big long head and these tiny little feet or whatever that image might look like distorted in that funhouse mirror. That’s really what ends up happening.
So, there’s a distortion.
But still – what exists as the “core piece” is that level at which you’re valuing and loving yourself.
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Your Relationship With YOU Is What Determines Your Relationship With A Man
How What You Don’t Like About You Shows up
Matthew: So, for a specific example: If I have a quality in me which is very judgmental. Say I’m judgmental of my own behavior.
I’m judgmental of people around me. Then when I see my partner being judgmental, it’s going to really bother me because it’s a part of me that I don’t like. It’s a part of me that I’m uncomfortable.
So, when I see somebody else, especially somebody who I’m in an intimate relationship with, being judgmental, it’s really going to get at me.
I’m going to see that quality in her and I’m going to go, “Oh man. I really want to change that in her!”
And what we really need to see is what that really means: It means I really want to change that in me!
Because if I’m okay with who I am, and I’m able to deal with my own judgment and see it for what it is and release it and let it go, then if somebody else is being judgmental -‐ I can have that same compassion for them I have for myself.
Those things that trigger us, those behaviors in our partner that just really get under our skin, are really that funhouse mirror of your own stuff being reflected back to you.
Because that person is just being who they are.
They’re not doing or saying things that are intentionally meant to bug you (unless they are -‐ and that’s a different story we’ll deal with later) -‐ they’re just being who they are.
The fact that you like some of what he does and says and don’t like some of it – that’s more a reflection of who you are than it is a reflection of him.
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When You Dislike His Behavior
Steve: So, if you’re seeing a behavior in your partner that irritates you or frustrates you in some way, really the trick is to look at yourself and say, “Is that a behavior that I have that I dislike?”
Orna: Exactly. One of the things we like to talk about is “responsibility.” For you to be “responsible” in the best way for you and your relationship.
So you need a really great way of looking at what actually IS your responsibility to take care of, and what ISN’T your responsibility to take care of.
This is something that can be very confusing for all of us. So here’s a way to easily divide “responsibility”:
1. If someone has a problem with you, it’s their problem. It’s not something you have to worry about. But...
2. If you have a problem with someone, now it’s your problem. Now is really the time to look within and say, “Well, why does that bother me? What’s going on inside of me that’s making me have a problem with this person?”
It will land in one of those two places. Yes, it could be that you have that exact behavior and so, you’re seeing yourself in that person. That’s the Funhouse Mirror we talked about earlier.
You’re seeing that part of you that you don’t like, or it’s triggering something from the past.
So, it’s possible that someone’s behavior could be triggering something and you’re experiencing it like it happened with your mother or your father or your best friend or your first boyfriend or whatever that might be.
It could be triggering something from the past or it could be your behavior, your own. But you want to do is look within and ask, “Why is this bothering me? Why is it bothering me that this person is behaving
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this particular way or responding to me in this way? What’s going on inside of me?”
Matthew: It shows up more specifically when somebody says, “Wow. You’re talking to me just like my mother. You’re talking to me just like my father.” Well, that person is not your mother. He – or even she – is not your father. They’re just doing what they’re doing.
Because that’s the kind of person you learned represented love when you were a child. That’s the kind of person you received love – or what represented love -‐ from.
So, it’s about, once again, looking at where things really come from.
We tend to want to put what’s happening inside us -‐ outside of ourselves. We instinctively want to put it on the other person.
What we’re saying is: Stop putting it on the other person. Start looking at yourself. Start looking at that “story.”
Orna: And that’s really what we’re saying when we talk about a true soul partner. A soul mate.
A soul mate is somebody that you want to work with you around your own stuff.
Matthew and I -‐ in our partnership, in our true soul partnership -‐ our personal growth and the growth of our relationship is all tied together.
It’s all about growing to be a better person. For me to be the best Orna. For Matthew to be the best Matthew. Working together for that. And that’s what we’re call a true soul partnership.
The reason a man is there, and that he has an “energy” that’s like your mother or your father, or an attitude or belief or specific behavior that reminds you of a feeling you had with your mother or your father, or that just “gets” to you - is because you’re attracted
to that on a subconscious level .
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When you come together for your individual growth -‐ and we know this path might not be for everybody -‐ for som eone who really wants to feel love on a deep soul level, this is the way to get there.
This work is about looking inside of you -‐ and that’s the path that we both took.
It took me a long time. It took me from New Year’s Eve 1994 of having that realization and spending all of that time on myself to end up in a relationship in 2007.
That was a long journey for me. What we want to tell women is that we’ve stumbled and made all of these mistakes -‐ and so it’s possible for you to get there on a fast track because you don’t have to be stumbling around in arenas that don’t work.
This work is really specific about what’s going on with you exactly. What’s going on with you specifically.
Whatever it is that’s blocking you from receiving a soul connection with a great man who loves you, right now, it’s inside of you.
The love that we desire is not outside of us. Cultivate it inside of you first, and that’s when it can be reflected back to you through the eyes of another.
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The Right Man Heals You And You Heal Him
Steve: And I have seen that in my own relationships. You’re talking about if you find the right person - they actually help you to become better. I can definitely say there’s been relationships where, when it’s been over I can say, “That person helped me become a better person.”
That’s actually something I look for if I’m going into a relationship: Does that person make me want to be better?
So, I’m curious. We’re talking a lot about working on yourself, working on your core values and the things that you’re looking at, but obviously you need to communicate with a partner. As we were saying earlier, you can’t say the wrong thing to the right man.
If you’re by yourself, it’s obviously very easy to focus on working just on yourself, but if you’re in a relationship and you’re working on yourself - how do you do that with your partner?
Matthew: Well, the key is in how you communicate.
Fighting And Communicating
The issue of “fighting” always comes up when we’re working with people, and so we’re always asked: “Do you guys ever fight?”
And we say to them, “Yeah, we do.”
And then the next question is: “What does that look like?”
We say, “Well, it looks like a fight because we’re people like everybody else,” but here’s what the difference is:
How does it end up?
Where does it go?
That’s all in “communication” -‐ and it’s all in HOW you communicate.
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We talk a lot about this idea of emotional authenticity and how to communicate authentically about what’s really going on inside of you -‐ as opposed to what your ego is attached to about the situation.
We tend to get caught up in that ego thing about wanting to be right. Or about wanting our way to be the way that solves things.
And what we find is -‐ the truth is -‐ that when we get into that place of emotional authenticity, and we’re both able to communicate our truth on that level, agreement is not required!
So, another way of saying that is:
Intimacy Does Not Require Agreement
Orna: So, if I’m authentic and I’m speaking how I feel authentically -‐ and Matthew also meets me at that high vibration of authenticity and he now speaks how he feels authentically, we don’t have to agree.
But that’s where true intimacy occurs.
That’s really the magic of being in a soul partnership, because suddenly you have real communication. That’s what real intimacy is.
What happens in most relationships is there’s a problem and we immediately go into blame or shame. There’s all this finger pointing and all this “you, you, you...”
When we have a fight, which I think at this point really does look differently than the way most people’s “fights” might -‐ sometimes we have those “staying up until two in the morning fights” and all of that -‐ we experience the same things that every other relationship goes through.
If there’s any relationship expert out there that’s telling you they don’t fight with their partner, they’re lying.
We want to be authentic and say, “Yeah, of course we fight.” But what happens in that fight is we both look within. We both say, “Wait a minute. What’s going on?” and we communicate very authentically about what’s happening with us in the moment.
I’ll communicate what’s going on with me. Matthew will communicate what’s going on with him.
We both say, “Wait a minute. What’s going
on?”
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And we always end up in this place of this incredible, magical intimacy. Where it feels to both of us that we understand one another -‐ on such a deeper level than the one we started on.
It feels truly like the “magic of a love on such a deep soul level” that we all dream about.
It’s what we all really want, but we can’t get there through blame and shame and finger pointing. We have to take responsibility for what’s going on with ourselves.
If I’m upset and I’m triggered by something, then that’s about what’s going on with me. It’s not about whatever Matthew is doing.
In relationship, we start to feel like we’re responsible for the other person’s happiness somehow. But...
No One Is Responsible For Someone Else’s Happiness
The only person’s happiness we have any control over is OURS. The only person’s behavior we have control over is OURS. We can only control the way we respond and the way we react in the world. We never have control over someone else.
I can wake up in the morning and be in a great mood, and Matthew on that same day can be in a bad mood. And you know what? That’s okay.
If he wakes up in a bad mood, I’m not trying to change his mood.
And the beautiful thing about that is: When he realizes I’m not trying to change his mood, then when he decides to shift it -‐ which is usually pretty quick -‐ we can both be in a good mood. But if I suddenly wanted to try and change him, he would dig his heels in. That’s just a natural human response.
Somebody tries to change you, what are you going to do? You’ll dig your heels in. You’ll stake out the position: “No, I’m going to be in a bad mood.”
So, it’s really about having that understanding that the only person you have control over is you. So, if you want to work on yourself in partnership, then just do the work on you because it’s infectious.
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When you start to shift and change who you’re being, a man who really loves you will start to follow along.
It’s like this hunger.
He’ll have this desire to want whatever it is you’ve got.
I remember years ago when I was in this transformation of really evolving who I was being. I was working with my boss very closely.
It was really just the two of us in this office and I was working in the music business and every day I would show up to work and just be me authentically and I remember one day my boss looks at me and he goes, “What is it that you’re doing? I want some.”
He’s like, “There’s something going on with you and I want some of that.”
That’s really what I mean about being “infectious.” That when we just do the work on ourselves, the people around us will start to take notice. And if they want some of “that” too, they’ll start to ask you about it, and you’ll start to be able to get in a dialogue about it.
But you can’t start off in a relationship and say, “I want to change this about you.”
Or even think “I want to change this about the other person.”
It sets up the idea and the agenda that there’s something you need to change in him, so then he’d be the perfect fix for you.
That’s completely backwards. If you’re not happy in your relationship, then look within and see what’s really going on with you. Ask yourself the question: Am I showing up authentically.
In other words, are you really communicating with your partner in a way where you accept responsibility? Where you really embrace this idea of emotional authenticity and speak how you feel in a way that communicates: “Oh, I hear you. I want to understand you. I feel for you and what can we do about this? If you’re not feeling good, how can we make you feel better?”
We both say, “Wait a minute. What’s going
on?”
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Another thing, too, is when we start to get in relationship -‐ being emotionally authentic is the best way to teach someone how you want to be treated.
When we talk about emotional authenticity, we’re not talking about just being emotionally authentic when it’s those emotions we don’t want to deal with like anger and fear and shame or blame. Not just those.
We also can express the bliss and the joy and all of the great things!
It’s so nice to be able to communicate to somebody and say, “Oh wow. It makes me feel so cared for that you open the car door for me. I really appreciate that. Thank you.” It’s such a great way.
It’s such a great opening to teach a man how you want to be treated simply by speaking how you feel -‐ regardless of having any judgment about him or his behavior. Basically – you’re releasing the judgment that’s “hooked up” to whatever that emotion is you feel.
Let’s face it. Emotions are momentary. They come and they go. But when we speak them authentically, something really magical happens in our relationship. It gives the other person an opportunity to meet you at that level of openly communicating, and then, together, you take the relationship to a whole new level.
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How To Stop Arguing And Get Love Flowing
Steve: And that’s very useful. Something we try to do is to give people who are listening actual action items that they can do and that’s very definitely one.
If you recognize an emotion, if you appreciate something that your partner is doing for you, then if you verbalize it in that moment, then you’re – hate to say it, makes it sound like “training,” - but you’re reinforcing that behavior. You’re communicating that that’s something that you appreciate that they can do for you. Yes?
Orna: Absolutely.
Matthew: Exactly.
Steve: Now, here’s another thing, and this is a little bit of a challenge to you guys. I know from my own life that I am now far more aware of how I feel at any given moment in time. I’m also far more aware of what my reaction is in say, like you were discussing, in the middle of a fight, than I used to be. So, if I looked at a very young version of myself, I would be in a fight.
We all know that when you start arguing you get stupid and you say things that you shouldn’t say and you come up with arguments that make no sense. Are there any kind of tips or examples or ideas that people can use to actually help them figure out what it is that they’re feeling and what it is that it might be that’s triggering a certain response?
So, your partner says X and you get this feeling of anger. How do you get from that point of feeling that anger to going, “Wow. That’s interesting. Maybe that’s because that’s how my dad used to talk to me or how my mother used to talk to me or whatever it might be.” Have you got any ideas or guides that you could come up with there?
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Steps To Cleaning Up The Fighting
Matthew: Sure. The first thing is to take some time after you’ve cooled down and look back at it. Initially, it’s going to be difficult to do it in the moment.
So, you want to be able to look back at an argument after it’s done, and be able to examine it when you’re not in the heat of those passions.
But once you start to get a sense of the “story,” once you become aware of that’s like my mom or that’s making me feel disrespected or that’s making me feel this way, then the way in is always through the body. It’s always in through the physical body.
I’ll explain it this way.
Start In Your Body
When we’re talking about emotion -‐ we use the same language of feeling as the words we use when we’re talking about physical sensation.
How does your knee feel? How does your head feel? How do you feel right now? How are you feeling?
So, we know that there’s a correlation between physical sensation and emotional feeling.
So, to teach yourself to learn the language of emotions -‐ you go into your body and you start noticing what you’re feeling. “Oh wow. I feel a real tightness in my chest or real constriction. I feel weight on my shoulders. I feel a knot in my gut. I feel nauseous.” Whatever those physical sensations are, they can begin to teach you a lot about what’s really going on with you.
A big part of it is becoming curious.
I’m curious about how I’m feeling.
So, you get into the physical body as the first step.
Now, you look at the sensation and go, “What is the sensation telling me?” -‐because there can be really wonderful metaphors to help you.
For example: If it’s nausea that you’re feeling in that situation, then what is it that you’re really having trouble digesting about? What is it that you really can’t seem to swallow, that you can’t seem to hold on to?
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If it’s a tightness in your chest, then what are you trying to protect about your heart? What are you trying to hold onto? What’s being squeezed out of you?
All of these can be looked at as a sort of different metaphorical expressions of what’s going on with us emotionally.
Pay Attention To Your Body’s Signals
Steve: So, pay attention to the signals that you get from your body...
Matthew: Is Step One.
Orna: And I would say the other part really is in how you’re expressing what you’re feeling. And certainly it’s about having compassion with yourself -‐ because we know that when you’re in the heat of the moment and you’re triggered by something, you may not get to all of these steps, but they’re what we call the steps to emotional authenticity.
So, like Matthew was saying, the way to identify emotion can be through the body -‐ and that’s really step one. So, step one to emotional authenticity is simply to identify the emotion.
So, you’re able to finish the sentence: “I feel ___” by filling in the blank, that’s identifying the emotion. And remember -‐ these are body sensations. This is emotion. It’s not a thought.
A lot of people tend to get stuck in our heads about what we’re feeling, and what we’re feeling is not in our head.
The head is generally the place where thoughts are generated. So, getting from that place – in the head and in your thoughts – to hear what your body’s saying -‐ that’s step one to emotional authenticity. Identify emotion. I feel – fill in the “blank.”
Step Two then is to express that feeling you’ve identified.
This can be out loud – and just to yourself. You just say it out loud. “Wow. I’m really frustrated right now” – or you can say it out loud to someone else...
Maybe I’ll tell you, Steve, “I’m really frustrated right now about this thing that Matthew did yesterday or whatever.” So, step two is simply to express it. Get it out. Put it into words.
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Step Three of the steps to emotional authenticity is -‐ express it with the person you’re having the feeling with.
That would be -‐ if I’m frustrated with Matthew for some reason, for me to express it to Matthew. I’d say, “I feel really frustrated right now.”
And these all compound. So, we have
Step One: identify the emotion
Step Two: express it to yourself, and
Step Three is now express it with the person you’re having the feeling with.
Step Four is -‐ in the moment that it’s happening.
So, Step Three (backing up a piece here) -‐ Step Three doesn’t have to be in the moment. Step Three is “When that thing happened yesterday, I was feeling really frustrated...” or last week or last month.
Hopefully you didn’t hold on to it and it’s not last year. Really, Step Three is just that piece of expressing it to the person, and step four then is in the moment that it’s happening. I’d say: “Right now, Matthew, I’m feeling really frustrated.”
The last step is the one that needs a little finessing because Step Five is sort of the culmination. We have identify the emotion, express it to ourselves, then express it with the person, then express it with the person in the moment -‐ and our
Step Five is -‐ at the appropriate intensity.
And appropriate intensity can be tricky.
There’re a few things we have to take into account -‐ because How do we know it’s appropriate for our own intensity of emotion?
The easy part -‐ one way of looking at it, one piece that might be in play -‐ is that if somebody’s had the same behavior like 97 times and you never piped up about how you felt about it, and it wasn’t favorable, and you suddenly flew off the handle, they would look at you like you have three heads.
Matthew would look at me like, “I’ve been doing this for months,” and I’m like, “Yeah. I know,” because it built up.
So, that’s my responsibility.
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If I didn’t express how I felt before and this behavior has been present, then it’s not really fair to Matthew to suddenly fly off the handle.
It’s been me that’s been holding onto it.
So, I’ll acknowledge that. And my intensity of the expression of that emotion should actually be tempered -‐ because I’m feeling it stronger. Because I’ve let it go on and on and on.
Emotions Compound
Now, the second part to looking at appropriateness of intensity is kind of tricky because we’re complex beings -‐ and what happens is that our emotions actually compound.
Grief is a great example. When we have a loss, when we lose someone, we really feel all the losses we’ve ever experienced. We feel all that grief of everybody we’ve ever lost -‐ and guilt works the same way.
Guilt compounds. Betrayal, feeling abandoned, all these emotions compound over time.
What we have to realize is that the person we’re engaging with in the moment is not responsible for all of the losses or all of the betrayals or all the times that you felt that emotion.
The other piece is that we tend to wait, and hold onto all of this because we think it’s “too small.”
The idea of Step Five, appropriate intensity is about this waiting and holding on.
...We tend to wait, and hold onto all of this because we think it’s “too small...”
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Holding On And Toning Down
If what we’re feeling and experiencing is a “level one,” don’t hold onto it -‐because pretty soon it might build up to a level seven, eight, nine, ten. So, if it’s a level one, you can simply express how you feel at a level one. If it’s a level seven, then you’re going to express it a little more intensely.
Here’s an example of this: We had a client a while back who is a therapist. She’s a marriage and family therapist, and one of the things we realized is that she was really sort of “tempering” all of her communication with her husband.
Everything was toned down to a level one or even point five. So her husband never really knew what was important.
She would say with the same sort of tone, “We need to get milk,” as, “Oh, my sister is getting married.”
So, was it important for them to go to the sister’s wedding? He was never really sure, because her emotions were always sort of tamped down to what she felt was a very “digestible” level for him, but he never really knew what was going on with her.
Our partner wants to be engaged with us and so, if we’re feeling something at a level ten, then we get to express it at a level ten -‐ but I promise you that most of the time, if we’re just sort of cleaning as we go and not letting things build up, level ten doesn’t come into play right away.
Most of the time level ten means you’ve been holding onto it.
So, if we just express how we feel at that level three, four, five -‐ whatever it is that’s going on with us all along -‐ then we’re not letting things build up.
The Non-Violent Template
We give our clients a template that I think is really helpful. It’s really basic non-‐violent communication -‐ and it goes like this: “I feel ___” and you fill in the blank.
When you fill in that blank , now you have two options:
Your man WANTS to be engaged with you...
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First choice option is “Can we please” -‐ and you offer a solution.
The second choice option is you make a request with a solution. So, second choice option is “Would you please.” That’s a request. So, here’s an example:
I feel neglected when you don’t take out the garbage. Would you please make an effort to notice when the garbage is full all on your own and take the garbage out?
The key is to be really expressing how we’re feeling.
So many of us get stuck in our heads, and start to process the situation in our heads – we’ll be like, “Why am I feeling neglected because the garbage isn’t taken out?”
It’s not about processing through an intellectual thought. Our emotions don’t have a system. The brain is very systematized and our thoughts are very systematized, but emotions don’t have a system. It’s not like there’s a resolution at the end. All that your emotions are meant to do is to be in the moment and to be expressed.
So, it’s not about processing “Why do I feel this way.
It’s really about saying, “Oh, I feel this. Let me express it,” and when we get to do that with our partner, we get to have that exchange of real intimacy, which is what our soul desires.
So, this opens up the way for communication. What we like to say is that -‐ really, this process is about speaking how you feel regardless of the expectations of others.
What we tend to do is -‐ we temper ourselves or we hold onto stuff or we let stuff build up because we think that’s not appropriate or that’s not important enough.
If you’re feeling it, you are important enough. If you feel it, it’s important enough to be brought up.
Just remember -‐ it could be brought up at one of those lower levels of intensity. It doesn’t have to be a big chest-‐beating expression of your emotion. It can simply be just expressing what you’re feeling in that moment.
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Worksheet Steps To Emotional Authenticity
1. Identify emotion (I feel ___________).
2. Express it.
3. With the person you are having it with.
4. In the moment it is happening.
5. At the appropriate intensity.
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Ultimately this means you must speak how you feel regardless of the expectations of others. By being 100% authentic you are valuing yourself.
Memorize this template for communicating emotions authentically:
“I feel __________________.
When you ______________.
Can we please . . .” OR “Would you please. . .”
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Healing And Moving On From Heartbreak
Steve: So, we’re talking about being in a relationship, and some tips and tricks for how to manage the communication between you, but let’s move further down the relationship dynamic.
Let’s say that you’ve gone through all of that and you’ve broken up with somebody.
Are there specific ways to deal with heartbreak? If you’ve had your heartbroken, does that really affect the way that you then approach new relationships?
Orna: Well, I think we’ve all had our hearts broken and so, that’s just a process of how things go.
I know one of the biggest gifts that I got in my journey to Matthew was really to just be in the space after a relationship ended where I wanted to find what I like to call the “golden nugget.” What was the golden nugget?
If I was in a relationship with this person and it didn’t work out, then that meant for me immediately that there was a reason.
There was a reason that it didn’t work out -‐ and I don’t necessarily need to figure that part out -‐ but what I need to figure out is: What was the gift for me to discover about myself in that relationship?
I’ll give a real specific example from my own experience:
I dated a guy named Jim. It’s a generic name, so I’ll share his name. In that relationship, when it ended -‐ it ended in a funky way. I sort of started the ending of it and he sort of finished the ending of it. It took me a long time to discover that golden nugget.
I kept thinking, “Why didn’t this work out? There must be something for me to learn,” and what I realized in hindsight looking back -‐ it
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wasn’t so much about Jim or me and Jim. It was really about Jim and his family.
Every family certainly has their dysfunction and his family certainly had their dysfunction, but one of the things that his family did in a lovely way is that they loved one another respectfully.
I’d been dating Jim long enough to meet his family and his extended family – and they all had a respectful love for one another. I’ve got to tell you -‐ for me that was quite foreign.
What I discovered, that golden nugget for me, was that I really wanted a relationship that had respectful love in it, and that I had grown up in a family dynamic where there wasn’t any such thing as respect.
In my family of origin, “I love you” actually was equal to “I don’t respect you,” because in my family of origin “I love you” meant “I can then do anything to you and there’s no boundary between you and me.”
Respectful love actually has a boundary.
So, having that discovery, I then started to work on me. I suddenly realized if I want to receive respectful love, then I need to learn how to give respectful love.
So, I started with myself and my relationship with me and then I grew it out to my friends and my family, as best I could, and onward and to practicing respectful love in my other relationships.
Giving it and then being open to receive it. To have that understanding was really the golden nugget.
So, some nuggets may not be as huge. That to me was a really big aha moment from that relationship.
What you want to do if a relationship ends is to look back and go: “Well, what did I learn about me? Is it something that I want to cultivate more? How did I show up and what was going on inside of me, so that I can see what I might want to shift to have my ideal relationship.”
One of the other things I want to share about heartbreak is something I heard a long, long time ago. I didn’t quite know what it meant at the time, but I feel like I really have a deep understanding of it now -‐ and
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that was this notion that when our heart breaks, it actually breaks open to hold more love.
Whether it’s the end of a relationship and you’re healing, or you’re in a relationship currently and disappointed, or you’re let down by your partner by a particular event -‐ it can feel like heartbreak.
I know that in my relationship with Matthew there have been times where I was disappointed about something and felt that feeling of heartbreak. The first time that that happened I felt like somebody had hit me in the stomach because I felt like, “Oh my God. I’m with my soul mate and I thought I’d never feel this feeling again.”
That overwhelming feeling of like being punched in the gut. When that air just gets sucked out of you of like, “Oh my God. I’m so heartbroken in this moment.”
When that happens, if I can start to think of it from that perspective of my heart’s being broken open to hold more love -‐ it gets better.
Every time Matthew has disappointed me or I’ve disappointed him, and we then communicate authentically to get to the other side of it -‐ our relationship is not only stronger, but my heart has broken open to hold more love for this amazing man.
Matthew: That’s so wonderful every time I hear that.
So, the other part of the question you asked is how does heartbreak affect us and how does that then affect the way we move forward?
The Golden Nugget Goes Toward Healing
Oftentimes, what we do is instead of looking for that golden nugget is to go the opposite direction. We constrict -‐ and the way we constrict is we say, “I don’t like this feeling. I never want to feel this way again, so what do I need to do in order to avoid this in the future?”
For example, we had a client who came to us because he was having lots of troubles in his marriage and he was really looking at: “What role am I playing here? What role am I playing?” At the time, his wife was being very dismissive of him, not wanting him to show and express all his energy. She kept saying, “Can you tone it down? Can you tone it down?” It was really crushing his spirit.
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So, we were looking at -‐ What was his role in this? What part did he play? -‐ and what we began to realize was his role in this was: Why he chose to marry her?
The reason he chose to marry her was because the woman previous to him had cheated on him, and he said, “I never want to be cheated on again. So, I’m going to choose someone who won’t cheat” -‐ and that became such an important value to him that it overshadowed other values that were also very important.
He did what he said he’d do. He married a woman will never cheat. She’s very faithful, but she’s also someone who can’t accept him as who he is.
So, we do that all the time. We choose values that are important to us because they’re in reaction to things that happen to us.
So, what we want to do is we don’t want to constrict ourselves in that way. We still want to realize that just because we had heartbreak, just because things didn’t work out, doesn’t mean we still can’t ask for all that we want.
We need to keep that sense of possibility open. And the way to do it is to release that negative emotion that’s associated with the heartbreak. That’s associated with -‐ the cheating or the disappointment or whatever that story is for you -‐ and to release that, so then you can keep open that possibility.
Looking for and finding that golden nugget is a real key to releasing that.
Orna: One of the other pieces too is when we’re in “reaction,” we’re sort of pigeonholed into this little space that’s very constricting. It’s like if the last boyfriend was a gambler, so you never want a gambler. The last guy was a drunk, so you just want someone sober.
It sort of pigeonholes this focus in reaction to the thing we don’t want, and because we’re energetic beings, the reality is we’re still tied into the energy of the gambler. We’re tied into the energy of the drunk. We’re tied into those negative energies. We’re putting our focus in the wrong direction -‐ saying, “Well, I don’t want that, so I’m going to choose this,” and that isn’t from the space of your heart’s desire.
“...My heart’s being broken open to hold more love...”
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When we talk about creating a soul mate partnership, we’re talking about a true soul partnership that comes from the limitless true heart’s desire.
We’re talking about “What do I really want? If I can have everything, what does my heart really desire?” The answer isn’t in reaction to the last breakup.
So, for healing that part of us after a breakup -‐ I think it’s so important to take the time with ourselves to really open up and have compassion and forgiveness for all parties.
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Bad Boys And Good Guys
Matthew: We see this bad boy vs. good guy pattern show up with our clients in a very specific way. We’ve been seeing this a lot lately:
There’s this idea of the struggle between the guy you’re really attracted to, who’s not good for you, and the guy who you should be with because he really loves you, but there’s no real attractive energy.
And when you’re having that either/or – well, either there’s dangerous guys, who I’m really attracted to, or there’s these nice guys, who I’m not attracted to, and those are my only options, then that’s really clear that at some point you made a choice about heartbreak.
Somewhere, you said, “I’m not going to let this happen to me again,” and how it’s showing up is seeing a limit in what’s available to you.
Steve: That’s all excellent points and actually I’m hearing echoes in my own personal life on a couple of things that you’re talking about - and this leads us very nicely into the other part of the relationship cycle, which is obviously you’ve ended a relationship.
You’ve had heartbreak. You’ve gone away. Licked your wounds. Thought about all of the different things that were right and may have been wrong and getting back into the gene pool and figuring out what’s next.
How to actually go find a partner? And really, what is...
The Key To Attraction
Orna: This is really interesting because when people go off and start dating; one of the biggest tools and most accessible tools out there right now is all of those online dating resources.
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There are all of these online dating sites and it doesn’t matter which site you go to. They all sort of boil it down, ask you a bunch of questions and try to match you up with somebody who is like you -‐and it’s unfortunate, because really the key to attraction is in the differences.
The key is really that attraction is born out of the differences. You can even say it’s born out of the conflicts. And that’s not something there’s an “algorithm” for, which is why it’s not available on internet dating sites. It’s not like they’re going to hook you up with the “opposite of you”-‐ because certainly there should be some core elements that you share with your partner.
But the real key to attraction is that -‐ What I need in relationship is actually the opposite of what Matthew needs in relationship and that’s why there is an attraction between us.
Having each of us get our needs met is the dance that we play in relationship and that’s how healthy relationships play out. Your partner needs one thing and you need something else. And oftentimes it’s the opposite.
And how you get those needs met and you both feel fulfilled is what we call creating that win-win. That we both win. That’s what we’re always looking for in our relationship and it’s how we coach our clients to be in relationship. To have this understanding that your need in relationship is something that is not going to be fulfilled by your partner 24/7.
I’ll use myself as an example. I require emotional connection. I require that I’m emotionally
connected to my partner. Now, that might seem really obvious to people - like duh. Some people think, “Well, duh. Doesn’t everybody need that?”
No actually. Everybody doesn’t need to be emotionally connected to their partner.
Actually what Matthew requires in our relationship is personal freedom.
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So, he needs his space, but I need to be emotionally connected to him.
And the dance that we do is that we both get our needs met. He gets his space and I get to feel emotionally connected, but I’m not going to feel emotionally connected to Matthew every minute of every day. Nobody can give you that. Not even a mother to a child. So many mothers are trying to give that to their children out there and it’s not possible.
So, I need to recognize when it’s important for me to feel connected.
If I’m feeling disconnected from Matthew -‐ I need to know how to ask for what I need in a way where he can step up and fulfill that. Just like he needs to ask for “space” when he requires it. When he feels like he needs that space.
So, that’s...
The Dance Of Being In A Relationship
It’s about having this understanding that when you’re attracted to somebody they’re going to want something in the relationship that’s different from what you want -‐ and that it’s not about a “negotiation.”
Matthew and I really don’t like the negotiation because it boils a relationship down to a business arrangement.
I don’t think we’re programmed as human beings to negotiate. We’re programmed to win. We want to win. So, what we look for all the time is a win-win. How do we both win? How do we both get our needs met?
Steve: And it’s interesting that – I saw a program a short while ago and they were studying attraction between men and women on a chemical level. What was fascinating is that we’re attracted to partners who actually have genes or part of genes that we are lacking.
So, by mating, we’re actually making a stronger DNA, which I thought was very interesting at a chemical level.
So, really we’re trying to find the other half of ourselves, so we get kind of a whole once the relationship comes together. Does that sound right?
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Matthew: It sounds exactly right, but it leads to another sort of myth about relationship, which is this idea of the:
Faulty Relationship Math
That one plus one equals one.
That in some way on an emotional level – maybe not on a genetic level, but on an emotional level -‐ that we are lacking in something, in some quality.
We’re lacking in some part of ourselves and that other person is going to fill that hole.
So, the two of us – I remember as a child there was a pendant that you got.
It was a heart and it was broken in half and you wore one half and the girl you were with wore the other half. This idea that you completed each other.
What we really like to see and get people to understand is that you are complete in and of yourself and we have a different faulty math.
Our math actually says one plus one equals three because it’s two whole beings coming together creating this third thing called the relationship.
When you start looking at it that way, you start realizing – “I need to feed the relationship in order to keep it thriving.”
YOU Count
Orna: And that actually brings me to another point. A lot of times women tend to sacrifice themselves in relationship.
We talk to so many women who are like, “I gave everything and it still didn’t work out,” and that’s exactly the role these women are playing in the demise of the relationship -‐ they gave everything!
Whatever your belief, whatever your higher power, God, Goddess, Universe, whatever it is – we believe no higher power will say that you don’t matter.
And when you sacrifice self, you’re saying you don’t matter.
The key is really to have this understanding of...
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“I count. I matter. What I feel matters. Let me express how I feel, show up authentically with all of who I am, so that that can be reflected back to me and I can engage in partnership with another person.”
So, this one plus one equals three is really the best sort of visual that we have for how this is created.
That you show up whole and complete, and you come into partnership with another person who’s whole and complete, and that equals a soul mate partnership.
That’s your third entity.
So, one plus one equals that third entity of the soul mate connection and you’re both whole, being in partnership together.
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Run From Intensity – It’s Your Clue That Something Is Wrong
Steve: And that actually leads me to another thought, which is that age old question of am I falling in love or am I falling in lust?
There are those times when you meet somebody and you get that really kind of intense connection for some reason, whatever it might be.
Is that likely to be the soul connection that you’re talking about or is it more likely to be the falling in lust factor that I’m talking about?
Matthew: We actually have a slightly different way of looking at that intensity. We say that fear and excitement are basically the same physical sensation, but fear has physical danger in it and excitement doesn’t – and that we oftentimes confuse the two.
We get fearful when we’re doing something that’s really actually exciting like public speaking or something like that -‐ and what we want people to understand is that intensity, that excitement is actually a fear response.
The way we came up with this understanding is we were working with a lot of clients who had some form of abuse in their past, whether it’s emotional abuse or physical abuse. Invariably they would say that when they met that person who ended up being a model for that abuse, that initially – when the relationship started -‐ there was this intensity.
That it was like the person could see right through them and just knew them and they were connected on this really deep, intense level.
We say when you feel that feeling, run away because it’s just going to lead to trouble.
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It’s just going to lead to you playing out something that’s from a very early age.
What we found when we came together was a much different feeling -‐ and I think Orna does a really great job of talking about it and describing that.
Orna: I think a lot of people think, “Well, if I don’t have that intense connection, pooh. I don’t want it.”
The reality is -‐ when you have a true soul mate connection with somebody, wow.
It’s so much better than “intense” connection -‐ because what’s tied into that intense connection is a lot of angst. It’s a feeling that feels out of control.
I can tell you that was the feeling I felt with Mr. New Year’s Eve 1994. This very intense connection.
It can also show up as - and feel like - a sign of familiarity.
It’s a subconscious signal saying, “This is familiar to me.” Now, it could be familiar to you because it’s good, or it could be familiar to you because it’s bad. Your subconscious actually doesn’t hold judgment.
All it’s telling you is -‐ this is familiar. And at the time, with Mr. New Year’s Eve 1994, wow. I thought this intense connection meant I was supposed to be with this person.
That he was the one.
That it was all of these things. And it wasn’t. Really, all that it was telling me was -‐ this is familiar. This guy has the capacity to harm you the way you were harmed in your family of origin.
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Curiosity Makes A Real Connection
Orna: When I met Matthew I had a different kind of connection with him. It was a feeling of curiosity.
The intensity was different, more in a curious place. I had this intense curiosity about him.
I felt like I was constantly in this place of discovery. It was like a wonder-‐ness.
That I wanted to know more about him.
I was like, “Wow. This guy is so – I just want to know more about him.”
We met through a business networking group – and so when we were engaging with each other, we were out at business networking meetings.
We would literally stand in the parking lot and talk at one of our cars when everybody was gone. The place was empty. The people that worked there were gone, and we’re still in the parking lot talking because we had just this connection of curiosity and discovery about one another.
I just enjoyed being in his presence in a way that was peaceful.
In a way that was very, very different from that crazy, intense connection that has angst attached to it. It’s something that I’ve heard people in the past say.
They’d say, “Oh, when you meet the right one you know,” and it always used to confuse me and perplex me.
I would say, “Well, I thought I knew,” but then it didn’t work out -‐ so then I didn’t know.
So, then how do you know when you really know?
All I can say is -‐ when you meet that soul mate, when you meet that true soul partner, it will feel different than it’s ever felt for you before.
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It will be a new feeling. There will be a connection and an attraction that is beyond words to describe.
I’m really having trouble finding words to describe it, but for me it really felt like this curiosity. And this feeling of being in this place of discovery and just simply wanting to be in this man’s presence.
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Marrying Yourself
Steve: And from everything you’re saying, it circles back to what we were covering in the beginning - which is that one of the most important factors for a relationship is truly knowing yourself, so you can fit into the relationship in the best way possible.
Orna: Yeah. You can show up as who you really are. We want to be loved for who we really are. It’s this weird dichotomy that exists in romance. It’s like we want to be loved for who we really are, but yet so many of us are terrified to show up as who we really are.
Well, how are we going to be loved for who we really are if we’re playing this weird dance of twisting into a pretzel to try and take a shape that we think the other person may like?
“Oh, I think if I behave this way, he’ll like me,” or “I think if I behave that way, he’ll call me.” It’s this weird game we play. And if we shed all of that, if we shed the game, and we really want a soul mate connection -‐ then it comes back to that age old saying: Know thyself.
Know thyself. Accept thyself. Love thyself. Really step into that place of really honoring and cherishing you.
After that New Year’s Eve of ’94, several years later actually – I live in southern California. I’d gone down to Venice Beach and I bought this ring – a simple band. It was a silver band. I was wearing silver jewelry at the time and I went down to the beach and I married myself.
I married me and it sounded kind of corny, but it was so important to me. Just like my wedding band now that I look at and it reminds me of the commitment I have with Matthew and it makes me smile every time I look at it.
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That silver band, I still have it. That plain silver band that I bought in Venice Beach that day and I went and married myself and I promised to love, honor and cherish me and I had never done that before.
I had never really committed to myself on such a deep level. I know doing that changed so much for me because it raised that level again of how I was valuing me. If I was committed to me, it meant I was invaluable.
So, that’s such an important key.
How are you treating yourself? Are you treating yourself the way you want to be treated by your partner? When you make mistakes, because we all do, are you hard on yourself?
Do you sit there and beat yourself up for days? Or do you just embrace yourself and say, “Wow. I did the best I could and I messed that up. Oh, that’s frustrating.” Then go, “Okay. I’m going to shake that off. I’m going to still love me in my imperfect form.”
Pretzel Twisting
Matthew: One of the things Orna mentioned in there I think is worth talking about, which is what we always call “pretzel twisting.”
We ask ourselves – “What shape can I take that will be loveable by this other person?”
I think how that shows up sometimes is what I refer to as the bait and switch, which is you get into a relationship with a person and they’re one way and they seem to like all the things you like and they seem to want to do what you want to do -‐ and as soon as there’s a commitment in the relationship, whether it’s marriage or moving in together, it’s like suddenly things start to change.
Now this person says, “Oh, I can relax now and be myself because I’ve got the commitment,” and the other person is like, “What happened to that person I fell in love with who liked all the things I liked?”
This is such a big problem in relationship because so many people aren’t being authentic from the beginning. Also – I don’t think that inauthenticity comes from a devious place.
It comes more from a fear that the person won’t love you for who you are.
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When we step into that, and really realize that the first step is we have to love us for who we are and then truly do love us for who we are -‐ we can’t not be authentic in relationship.
Steve: Yes and it’s very hard work trying to be somebody else a lot of the time.
Matthew: Yeah.
Orna: Yeah. It’s exhausting.
You Are HERE
Matthew: You are perfect as you are. There’s nothing wrong with you.
What’s really interesting is when we get with a client, we hear her story.
We find out where she came from, how her parents were, her patterns in relationship, the beliefs that she has in relationship.
We look at all that and we put it together and we go, “Wow. I get it. I get it why you are exactly where you are.
And there’s nothing wrong with where you are -‐ because if we had made those same decisions and we had had that same background, we’d be in the same place.”
So, the realization that where you are is exactly where you’re supposed to be – and that there’s nothing wrong with where you are – is very powerful.
It doesn’t lead to a complacency as much as it leads to an understanding and an acceptance and a lack of resistance to being where you are.
Then you can say, “Okay. This is where I am. Where do I want to be and what do I need to do and who do I need to become to get to that place I want to be?”
Orna: It’s sort of like if you had a map -‐ and let’s say you’re at the mall and you’re looking for Nordstrom’s -‐ well you’ll find Nordstrom’s on the map, but if there isn’t a “You are here” spot, which we know is usually
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the first thing you look for – then how to you get from “here” to “there”?
Where am I? Now, where’s Nordstrom’s?
That idea of I’m perfect as I am. I am right where I am, and this idea of accepting all that is in this moment – that’s what needs to happen.
That “you are here” spot on your map. If your destination is a soul mate relationship, well how are you going to get there unless you know where you are now?
So, you want to accept instead of resist all that is in this moment. When you move into acceptance and say, “Oh, this is where I am right now and these are the patterns that I’ve created in my relationships up until this point” -‐ now you’re in a great place to shift that and move forward toward that destination point of a soul mate relationship.
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Is There Only One Soulmate For You?
Orna: I like to think that a lot of it has to do with timing.
Some people believe that a soul mate is somebody who teaches you something -‐ and then they move on and you move on to someone else who is a soul mate also... and then they teach you something and you move on. I don’t think it works like that.
I think we come together with our soul mate and that timing has a lot to do with it. So, it’s not that you need to search out that one person out of the six billion on the planet.
I think it’s a timing thing.
It’s that idea of water seeking its own level. It’s that when you reach the top of that mountain for you, you will reach the top of that mountain and come into partnership with the person who’s at that same level as you. And that is your soul mate for this lifetime.
So, I don’t believe you go from soul mate to soul mate. I believe that we have one soul mate, but it’s one for this lifetime. It’s not one specific person.
Timing has a lot to do with it. Your soul mate is a person you’re going to spend your life with -‐ in personal and spiritual growth together, where the commitment is to stay together and work through things together, so that you grow together, learn together and share all the joys and grief that life has to offer together.
Steve: Do I have more than one option out of the six billion people?
Matthew: Yes.
Orna: Yes.
Steve: If I were a woman, then there many men who might actually be able to be my soul mate?
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Matthew: Yes.
Orna: Yeah.
A Man Is Inspired By Himself
Matthew: So, oftentimes we get stuck with that idea that there’s either the guy I’m really attracted to or there’s the guy who’s nice, but I just don’t have any energy with.
And the guy that you’re really attracted to has those qualities of either being unavailable or being an addict or being in some way not able to be there for you.
In that situation, you get this idea that: If you can just be good enough, you’ll inspire him to change. This is the trap that so many women get into.
What we want to realize is that the guy out there for you is inspired by himself and his own desire to be a better person. He has to want to change and he’s out there doing that work.
You need to step out of the loop of this guy versus that guy and begin to open up the realization that there are plenty of other guys out there who are working on themselves, who are growing, who are expanding, who are going deeper and deeper into becoming the best person they can be.
It’s about stepping out of the double bind or the blinders that say there’s really only two types of guys available to me. That’s about doing the inner work on yourself to become available to that other guy who is out there working on himself for himself.
So, the way we look at soul mates is not necessarily that there’s one soul out there for you in this vast sea of the billions of people on the planet and you’re in some way going to stumble upon him.
The way we always think of and talk about a soul mate partnership is this idea of two people who are on a path of growth, spiritual growth, personal growth -‐ whatever that is and they come together in relationship to support each other in the continuation of that growth.
This idea that we’re here on Earth school and that we’re meant to learn something and that one of the things we’re meant to learn is how to be in relationship and what being in relationship can teach us more about ourselves.
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Orna: One of the things that Matthew and I really discovered about one another really early on, which was so delicious about coming together, was that we had both realized individually when we were alone and not in relationship that you actually grow exponentially when you’re in partnership.
So, the work of doing personal growth and spiritual growth actually accelerates when you’re in partnership with another person. Both Matthew and I had come to a place where we’re like, “Okay. I’m not really sure what else I’m supposed to do on my own here. Where’s my partner to take the rest of the road together with me now?”
And that’s really what we call a soul mate. Somebody who wants to work with you, so that they can grow personally and spiritually alongside you.
Steve: And sometimes that would look like being triggered by them.
Matthew: It could look like being triggered by them. Getting triggered can be the clue that that lets you know you’re looking at a possible soul partnership. That a true soul partnership is where it goes from there. We’re going to be triggered by anybody we’re in intimate relationship with.
The question is what do you do with the trigger?
Do you go deeper with it? Do you get into communication about it? Do you learn more about yourself?
Do you learn how to grow past the trigger -‐ or do you stay in that ego place of “I’ve been triggered and you’ve in some way made me wrong,” or “You’ve in some way done something that triggered me and you need to do something about that”?
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Becoming Soulmates From Where You Are Now
Steve: Okay. What should I do if I’m a woman in a relationship - and I’m totally in love with this guy, but it isn’t going well? Can he still be my soul mate? Can I turn it into a soul mate connection?
Orna: Oh, absolutely. When you’ve made the commitment to be with somebody -‐ the key really is “Do you love that person.”
Whether you really know you want to work on the relationship.
Now, the only person you have control over is you. So, the key really there is to find out if your partner is willing to work on the relationship.
So, it’s about expressing how you feel and using the tools that we’ve given you of the steps to emotional authenticity, taking all the responsibility for how you’re feeling and expressing those with a solution. The way you’re going to know if your partner is able to meet you is how they respond to you being authentic.
Do they meet you? When you step up and say, “This is how I feel,” and you’re being 100% authentic -‐ that’s a very high, energetic, vibrational level to be at. It’s really like sending that person an invitation.
It’s like an invitation to say, “Hi. Please meet me at this high level of vibration of authenticity.”
Now, some people will meet you at that level and some people won’t -‐ and that tells you about where they are in their journey.
So, if you’re in relationship with somebody, you want to know if they’re able to meet you there. You’re just sending them invitations and seeing if they accept your invitation and step up to that place of being authentic.
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Now, it may be that you need some professional guidance and some help. If there’s a lot of water under the bridge, it can be really difficult, but if you have trust and love, then it’s really possible to work on a relationship and really have that true soul mate connection. It’s possible to get to the other side and be amazingly strong on the other side of whatever it is, the problems that you’re currently having.
The thing about leaving a relationship and starting over is guess what? You’re still you.
So, whatever problems you didn’t overcome are going to show up again and again. So, if you’re in partnership and there are problems, look for where the responsibility of those problems is inside of you. Then, doing the work on you will start to shift them. Then see if your partner will meet you to work on that himself as well.
Now, if he’s willing to work on himself, guess what? Now you can have that real intimacy and create that soul mate connection.
Matthew: And the other piece of this -‐ and we believe so strongly in this that this was actually in our wedding vows -‐ is this idea of being always in forgiveness. Always in forgiveness of self when you screw up and always in forgiveness of your partner when they screw up.
It doesn’t mean that you allow them to do whatever they want to do and you say, “That’s okay. Anything you do is okay.” But it does mean that you always leave open the space for forgiveness. That there can be forgiveness in any situation.
Now, I think it helps if that person is meeting you at that deep authentic level. If they’re not able to do that or they’re not willing to do it or they don’t see that there’s a problem, they don’t want to do anything -‐ then you’ve got to question. Is this really a soul partnership or is this just two people coming together out of comfort and out of a desire for companionship?
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Meeting Your Soulmate
Steve: The last thing I can think of is - if I’m a woman, can you give me a visualization of how I can go out into the world everyday and know that my soul mate is going to show up? And that I can bring him in and attract him in the most powerful way possible?
Orna: One of the things that’s is really great about creating a relationship you really desire is to boil it down to something that you know you really desire that may not have been in your past relationships.
So, for me, there’s that whole idea of having respectful love. And so I created a mantra or affirmation, if you will, that I found so helpful -‐ I just started saying to myself all the time, whether I was going to go meet somebody to be on a date or not.
Respectful Love
Wherever I was, I was constantly affirming this thought: The men I love are loving me respectfully. I would just say that over and over.
The men I love are loving me respectfully.
So, if you’ve gotten that golden nugget for yourself – ask yourself
What am I creating?
What do I really want?
What’s a key ingredient for me, and how can I cultivate that?
Because I wasn’t just saying this affirmation and then just letting it lie. I was saying it with emotion, and I was practicing respectful love with everybody in my life in that moment.
I was practicing giving respectful love and receiving it -‐ however it showed up, in whatever form. Even not in the form of an intimate relationship.
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The Ideal Scene
Matthew: And I think the other part, when we talk about visualization, we need to first understand what visualization is and how it works.
For me, the way to understand that is to look at a phrase that so many of us use in our everyday conversation, which is: “I just can’t see myself doing that.”
When we say that, whether we’re talking about bungee jumping off a bridge or traveling around the world or whatever that thing is – what we’re speaking is a literal truth. That literal truth is: We can’t create a picture in our minds and see ourselves in that event.
So, visualization is about seeing yourself having, doing, being what it is that you desire, so that on a subconscious level it feels possible. When it feels possible, then you’re going to take the actions necessary to get what you want.
So, if you say, “I want a true soul partnership and I want somebody who loves me respectfully and I want somebody who has all of these qualities I desire,” but you can’t see them because they’re just intellectual concepts -‐ you need to work at creating what would that look like.
How would that show up and the way we do it is something we like to call The Ideal Scene.
The Ideal Scene is thought of in this way: What evidence would I need in my life to know that I am in a soul partnership? So, the Ideal Scene is that first scene that comes to mind:
We would be doing this in this way...and he would be communicating to me this way... and I’d be responding to him this way...
...and where would you be when you’re doing it...and what would you be seeing...and what colors would be there...and what smells would be there and what emotions would be there?
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Really fill that scene with as much sensory information as possible, so that it becomes rich and full and three dimensional.
Then sit and focus on that on a daily basis.
I created a vision board on New Year’s Day of the year that I met Orna and there were three images of women on that board -‐ and all of those images had women with dark curly hair. Orna has dark curly hair. I was very clear on that image and what it meant to me.
Yes, that’s a physical, outward thing that I was physically attracted to, but within those pictures were also all these words and images of that whole idea of spiritual partnership. It was all woven into these images -‐ so it was very clear to me what it looked like and what it felt like and what it was going to be like when I got it. That is key.
Now, the other key is “letting go” because it’s not going to show up exactly like you think it is.
I had two Ideal Scenes -‐ and when I met this other woman before I met Orna, I acted out those Ideal Scenes with her. I intentionally did it because I knew “we’re supposed to go ‘here,’” so I took her to that place. I wanted to “see” it happening and I essentially tried to manufacture it -‐ but when I met Orna, it was extremely organic.
We just ended up in the places I saw in my Ideal Scenes, and doing those things. It want until we were “in” a certain place that I went, “Oh, wait a minute. I’ve seen this before. I know what’s going on here.” That it was a realization in the moment. I didn’t have to “plan” anything. It just unfolded that way – the way of my Ideal Scene.
So, that’s the power of visualization.
Orna: I also want to share an experience of one of our clients:
In her Ideal Scene, when we asked her “What evidence would you need that you will have met your soul mate?” -‐ for her it was a first meeting with a man where they shared a laugh.
It was really important to her that they would share a laugh -‐ and it was so cute, because she’s in a relationship now and she called me up a couple of weeks into the relationship saying, “Orna, Orna. You won’t believe it. I met this guy and we’re dating and I know it’s really early, but oh my gosh. We shared a laugh and it happened exactly the way I pictured it.” The way she had created her Ideal Scene.
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So, it’s not that you’re trying – I love that Matthew pointed that out. It’s not that you manufactured the scene to happen. It’s that when it’s happening, it almost feels like a déjà vu. You almost have that sense of, “Oh, I’ve been here before.”
It’s because your mind has traveled to that place before. It’ll feel familiar to you.
Leave Space For Magic
Orna: I also want to expand a little bit on this notion of leaving space for something magical to happen.
We definitely work with people in specific ways. We’ll say, “Create a list,” and we do that in a very specific way about what you want. Matthew did have a list.
He had a list of 20 items, and we always joked that I’m 19 1/2 out of the 20 items. Now I really didn’t have a list. I certainly had my deal-‐breaker list.
I had an idea of what I wanted very specifically, but I didn’t write down a specific list of qualities. I left space for the things I wouldn’t think of.
I left space -‐ for me that space is God, so if that works for you, great, but whatever you want to put in there.
I left space for God. God is the universe to support me and say, “Wow. Wouldn’t it be great if you had this.”
That space actually made it possible for me to receive a man into my life who I didn’t even know was possible for me. If I would have just made a list, I
would have left things out that Matthew brings to the table. Things that I absolutely adore about him.
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So, I think it’s important to also leave that space for that magic to happen.
Yes, create the scene, visualize it, work with it, and when it shows up you’ll know -‐ but every single detail might not be the same. You might not be wearing that black dress you pictured yourself in. It might be a red dress and that’s okay.
It’s the feelings that are really important. It’s the emotion. It’s what you’re feeling and smelling and tasting.
It’s those visceral things that are going to tell you you’re in that right scene and that you’re with your soul mate.
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You Can’t Say The Wrong Thing To The Right Man
Steve: Perfect. Okay last question. I’ve heard you say that you can’t say the wrong thing to the right man. How does that work? Is that about the authenticity?
Orna: The idea that you can’t say the wrong thing to the right man is: If he’s the right man, it’s going to work out.
So, if it didn’t work out and he’s saying it’s over, honor what he says. If a man tells you, “I don’t want to work on it. It’s over,” believe him.
What we get stuck in is this idea of the rebound, the coming back, the rekindling of something.
I like to ask our clients, “Would you rather be in this relationship that you know isn’t working or would you rather have everything that you’ve been dreaming of having in a relationship with somebody you don’t know yet?”
And every single time everybody picks the new discovery. The discovery that they haven’t experienced yet.
We get stuck in this idea of the person.
You can’t say or do the right thing with the wrong man means -‐ when you show up authentically, and you’re in the practice and the daily practice of loving, approving and accepting yourself, that man who is your soul partner will love and accept you and honor you and cherish you. And he’ll do all that in a way that you may never have never experienced before. You can’t screw that relationship up.
I could sit here and start sharing with you examples of how Matthew and I have disappointed one another and some people would say, “Wow. How did you get to the other side of it?”
Well, it was easy to get to the other side of it because he’s the right man for me.
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Because a lot of Matthew’s personal stuff is this idea of disappointment. He thinks that if he disappoints somebody, they’re going to abandon him.
So, I get to show up and say, “Oh, you disappointed me. That sucks. Oh well. Let’s move forward.” So, he can’t screw this relationship up. I can’t screw this relationship up. It’s not like I can suddenly do or say something that’s going to make him say forget it. I’m over it. I’m out of here. It doesn’t work like that.
When you’re in the soul mate relationship, your partner will want to grow with you and learn with you and be with you and face his own demons.
Matthew: So, I’ll give a specific example of this. Early on in our relationship we had one of those really big sort of knockdown, drag out fights that went on until two in the morning, and at one point I had a realization that in the past this was it. That was my breaking point.
I would have, in the past, walked out and said, “I’m done. I’m not going forward with this,” but I realized in that moment that I didn’t want to be done. That there was more that had to be done. I actually stopped in the middle of that argument and said to Orna, “This is the point at which I would normally leave and I’m not leaving.”
I think that’s the place you get to. That’s what we mean by you can’t say or do the wrong thing to the right man because when you’re in that place it’s like you’re both here to work this out. There is no tipping point at which the person says “I’m done. I’m leaving. That’s it. I’m out.”
Orna: And what we want you to have the understanding of -‐ is that when you’re in the soul mate partnership, it’s always with integrity. So, it’s not like suddenly my deal-‐breakers go away, but Matthew isn’t the kind of person who embodies those deal-‐breakers. They don’t show up in this human being.
When he “messes up” it’s not like he’s going to accidentally hit me one day. That will never happen. This man is not capable of doing that.
The idea that you can’t say the wrong thing to the
right man is: If he’s the right man, it’s going to work out.
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So, this idea you can’t say or do the wrong thing with the right person, as long as you’re showing up authentically and being who you are, that person is going to love you.
I heard this actually long before I believed it to be true. I actually was like... harrumphed. I heard this comment. It was: When you meet your soul mate they will love that thing about you that made all the others leave. They will love that thing about you. And I was like, “Yeah right.”
I did not believe that then, and now I’d like to modify it slightly. I’d like to say: “They’ll either love that thing about you -‐ or if it’s something that‘s really perceived as a negative, they just don’t see you as embodying that quality.
I know this because every single guy who ever broke up with me said, “You’re too intense. You’re just too intense. I can’t take it. I’m out.”
That was basically their breaking point. My “intensity.” I could ask Matthew now because he’s here. Baby, do you think I’m intense?
Matthew: No. I think you’re passionate, but definitely not intense. And I love that passion you have. That’s what I really love. It was on my list. Passion. So, yeah, it’s exactly that. Your soul mate doesn’t see that thing about you in the same way that all those other people did.
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About Orna And Matthew
Steve: How did you guys either individually or together end up as relationship experts?
Matthew: We actually chose to start this business together. It really comes from just, first off, a series of sort of synchronistic events. Then, we looked at what brought us together and we went, “Oh. Well, that’s what we really need to be doing.”
So, the first thing that happened was -‐ we got an opportunity to speak somewhere and somebody said, “We’d love to have both of you speak.” My wife is a manifestation coach and I’m a hypnotherapist -‐ and they thought it’d be really fun to have us talk together.
So, we thought, “What are we going to talk about?” We started really discussing that and realized what we both have is a passion for relationships -‐ and we just decided to jump in and create this business.
But the real back story is more about what we did to find each other that became the backbone of what we do.
Orna: One of the things that happened is: When Matthew and I, even when we started dating, very quickly we realized that we both had taken very intentional paths to be in the place to receive one another and to receive this relationship and to step up and really have what we call a true soul partnership.
And we took very different paths. When you look at the details -‐ as far as the work we did on ourselves separately – it all had a common core. It was all really tied to our relationship with ourselves. For each of us, it was about overcoming these sort of internal obstacles so we could be in a place where we could really accept all the parts of ourselves, really be open to receive that one thing that we really wanted and not settle for anything less.
So, when we had that opportunity to speak together and decided we were going to speak about relationships -‐ when we really started
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looking at it, we realized we had all of this knowledge and all of this background working with clients on different issues, but the core issue always came back to this idea of your relationship with yourself.
So, it really evolved from there. The idea of us being the “power couple” is really about helping our clients step into their own power and into love. Love is such a powerful feeling. It’s such a powerful force -‐ and so many people are blocked from receiving that one thing.
So, it was really about looking at what was our path to each other. And then creating ways to help other people utilize those tools and skills we’ve honed, so they could be open to receive love as well.
Steve: So, do you tend to work with people individually or do you kind of pass them back and forth between you to work on different aspects? Or do you actually get together – the three of you - and then have a conversation between all of you?
Matthew: We get together with three people. It’s the two of us as “the coach” and then our client that we’re working with. We’ve found that it’s a seamless process. That we work together very smoothly and very easily and it flows back and forth between the cognitive stuff that we both know and also what we call the tools of transformation that we love to use.
So, when you get us, you get us and you get us at the same time.
Find out more about Orna and Matthew and the programs they offer to help you create the love and life you want at their website CreatingLoveOnPurpose.com