 Hi, Lauren. Hi, Shane. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day. Can we talk about the song of the ages? Of the ages. It is the song of the ages. I love you. I appreciate you. I love that song. Thank you. It's interesting because my podcast this week that I put out was about your 10 different soulmates. And it explores the concept of the fact that because we're not getting married at 22, 23 anymore, that lightning feeling of, oh my God, like you are my star-crossed lover happens several times in your life. It does. I can attest to that. Yeah. It's happened to me many times. How do you cope when your soulmate is now an ex? Ooh. I think like you said, there's many soulmates, you know? So I think the coping... I had already understood that this person wasn't my... I wasn't going to be with this person forever. So I think that I already knew that in my body. And so I wasn't really coping with walking away from something. It was more... Actually, that's a lie. I was coping with it. But I had an also deep knowing inside of me already. My body knew already that this wasn't resonating with me anymore. And it wasn't good for me anymore, you know? Can you say more about that? Because I had a similar experience where I kept getting bacteria vaginosis, UTIs, yeast infections from a past partner. Right. And I went to a doctor. Because your body was literally rejecting him. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that for me it's more an energetic thing. It's like how I feel when I'm around you. And for me, emotional safety is really important to me in relationships. And I think I had reached a point... I was really young. I was in my early 20s, like beginning of my 20s when I was with this person. So I was emotionally... I wasn't as mature as I am now. And there was just a lot of emotional volatility in the relationship. Because both of us had wounds that we hadn't worked on. And therefore the communication wasn't ideal. And it wasn't what I needed from a partnership in order to feel safe. In order to feel emotionally safe. When I don't feel emotionally safe, my body starts to pull back from somebody. Like I start to not be as attracted to them. Or it doesn't feel the same way that it used to. And I hold on to... What I've learned also from that experience is that is when it's time to walk away, walking. Not lingering, not holding something out, not waiting until every single feeling disappears. But just understanding when something isn't right for me anymore and being able to have the courage to have that honest conversation. Because we get comfortable in co-dependence. We get comfortable in what we're already doing and what is routine for us. Relationships can become that. They can become habits and routines. You're used to this person. You're used to the way you live life with this person. And it is so jarring to walk away from something that's... We were together for two years. So that was like a very intimate part of my life. But when you know you have to walk away, you just have to. I also love the term walk rather than run. Right. Yeah, it's a walk. It's a gentle leaving. What was the problem? What was the poison? In that specific relationship? I think there were different factors to be fair. But for me, what my issue was, I just... I felt like I couldn't grow. I felt like me growing was a threat to our relationship. And... Growing how? As a person, as a woman. Exploring myself, figuring out what I like, what I don't like. I was really young at the time. With the dynamic of older men and younger women, sometimes it's just like, I want you to act a certain way. Yes. And I'm like, I can't just act a certain way. I'm myself. And I'm going to keep discovering myself. And I'm going to keep expanding. And if you're not okay with my expansion, then this isn't real. You know? We have this episode that's called Cocooning, and it's a concept that we've coined around here, wherein it's unfortunate truth that some relationships are not going to experience your butterfly phase, but were necessary in order for you to become a butterfly. Mm-hmm. Does that feel about right? Yeah. Yeah. And also, just realistically, he loved me to the best of his ability, you know? Like, given his own obstacles and trust issues and all of the things that's happened to him in his life, you know? Which was I was able to see from a higher perspective after the fact as well, you know? Where it's like these things weren't personal. This is just... And I also didn't know how to handle insecurity properly. You know what I'm saying? If someone's feeling insecure in a relationship, I was just like, I'm not acting like that and I'm not doing that, so like you're making shit up and you're just making yourself mad over some stupid shit. That's not real, you know? And I was very, like, no empathy for that, you know? Because I'm like, how the fuck are you gonna make me a villain when I didn't do anything? Yes. You know? Like, you're literally projecting some entire... In that storyline. An entire story onto me. Like, I refuse to be a character in a story. Like, I'm real. I'm tangible. I'm in front of you, you know? I asked you for a story before we got here today. Do you... Because people often tell the story of the moment they knew. Like, the moment I knew that I fell in love with you. The moment that I knew that I liked you. Which, you know, happened very early on. You're lovely. But the moment that you knew this is not your life story. This was just a love story in your life. When did I know? I feel like it's disrespectful. It was a lot earlier than when I left. There was a specific moment. I don't know if it was a specific moment. I think it was just any time that, like I said, the arguments would come up where I would become a character in a story instead of being myself. Where I... When I felt like I wasn't being seen. I was being projected onto. You know? It's like the narrative of whatever his ex had done to him was on me. And I was such a good girl. I am not a cheater. Like, I don't fuck with that energy. Like, if I feel something about somebody while I'm with you, I'm going to let you know and I'm going to leave, you know? So I think just this constant questioning of my character kind of just took a toll on me after a while. You know? And this like inability to fully feel like myself. Where I felt like I had to leave certain parts of me in the dark in order to be present. You know? And doing that over and over again because for me, love for a long time met. What can I give you? What can I offer you? How can I show up for you? How can I learn you? How can I understand your languages and understand what you like and need and want and feel? And how can I be of service to you? Was what love was like to me. And as I've grown, I've just understood that I also need love back, you know? There needs to be reciprocation. And a lot of the time it wasn't the people I was with fault. It was my inability to communicate my real needs because I didn't believe that that was the part of the process, you know? It was how I can show up for you is what love means. Not how can you show up better for me? And then if that came up, like if I tried to have a conversation about how things could be better for me, I felt very shut down a lot of the time. And so, and not out of, again, like in retrospect, I can understand I wasn't shut down out of maliciousness. I was shut down because when you tell someone who really loves you that they're not loving you right, it can hurt them. It can make them feel inadequate. It can trigger trauma wounds of theirs of feeling inadequate, you know? Which probably caused problems for them in other relationships. So I understand those triggers and traumas now. But at the time, and in general, I deserved to be heard. I deserved to be seen. And I deserved for my truth to be able to exist within our partnership. Because without honesty, you don't have a foundation. Like you just don't. You're two floating versions of people who are coexisting with each other. But it's very superficial, you know? Because the real depths that are... The real moments of, I'm asking for you to see me. I'm being really vulnerable right now. To be shut down in those moments, it takes a toll, you know? But someone who is emotionally immature, who doesn't know how to handle those kind of strong emotions, who doesn't know how to talk through difficult emotions, who doesn't know how to handle conflict with love, you know? Because they've never seen that. They don't have any tangible examples of how that exists, you know? It's kind of hard to teach somebody that, you know? I can so, like, sink my teeth into and taste and feel and empathize with exactly what you're saying. So thank you for sharing that. I had Becky Ji on the podcast, and she was talking... She's incredible. I didn't ask her to sing, which I fucked up on that. But now that I know that I can, I'm like, Lauren did it, so everybody should. That's not how it works, okay? Just so you know that's genuinely not how it works. People need to feel free. They need to feel free. They also need to be able to sing. Yes. Period. Without autotune. Becky, copy and paste said what you said, though, about... When it came to the way we love and how we receive love, how we give love, I think it set me up to be caring and empathetic of all those around me, but constantly serving to those around me without really realizing what it was costing me. I think there's a Latina woman thing. Tell me more about that. Yeah, I just... I think that the patriarchy is very strong. It's a very stronghold in our communities. And I think that women are absolutely subservient to men in our cultures. The majority of us are just... We grew up in really abusive situations, you know? Like life is abusive. Like white supremacist culture, patriarchal culture is abusive. It thrives off and survives off of abuse. And this inability to tap into the humanity of each person involved in the story, you know? And when you're with somebody, it's easy to get caught up in like what's happening to you and how you're being treated and whatever, but very rarely are we self-aware enough to understand that we're choosing something that's not respecting us.