Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to youo Odyssey Podcast where your guides Tara and Karen invite you on a transformative journey toward wholeness and personal growth.
Each week we'll discuss topics related to the human experience and offer insights to help you along the way.
Please note this podcast should not replace medical care or advice.
We are not licensed healthcare professionals or mental health therapists.
If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe so you don't miss out on our future discussions.
So explorers, let's dive into today's episode.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Hey explorers, it's Tara. Karen and I are so glad you pressed play today.
Karen. I really think we can pull off another four episode love series. But not like the neat we got it all figured out kind of way. But in the this is messy.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Love is messy.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: So we can split this up and make it different than what we did last year, but we can do it.
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Yeah, there's all the ways of love. We talked about all the different kinds of love last year. The overarching, unconditional love. Where we love to be, where we all want to be headed, what we want to feel. It feels so good. Whether it's in the form of a spiritual experience or a personal relationship, ultimately, the best and strongest relationship we're going to have is the one we have with ourselves and is hopefully grounded in love.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: That is the hope. So when we talk about love or when we hear love, especially in the commercial space, it's like the idea that it's supposed to feel good all the time. Like if it's real love, it'll be easy, comfortable, maybe a little intoxicating.
To be clear, love can feel good, be warm, reassuring and safe.
Sure, sure, she says. Sure, Kat. And some of the most loving moments of my life, they didn't feel good at all. They felt very inconvenient. They felt stretching. They interrupted the versions of me that just wanted things to stay familiar, to stay small, to stay comfortable, to stay as they were.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: The inconvenient truth of love.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yes. And that's what we want to talk about today. Because this love, this true love, this beautiful love, it doesn't just comfort us, it forms us.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: It molds us. It shapes us. It holds us. It pulls us sometimes with our feet dragging just a little bit, right?
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yes.
So when we talk about this stretching love, what do you notice in your conversations, either personally or professionally, that we bump into when love stops being comfortable?
[00:03:05] Speaker C: What I notice in my body is there's a pit in my stomach and I'm not sure I want to keep talking about this.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: I love that she's like.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: I'm like, oh, I don't. It kind of doesn't feel good in my body initially. I really have to intentionally create that inner safety, that insertion of internal love.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And there is this tension that exists, and I love that we're naming it right up front off the top of the episode. But this tension makes me think that if love never costs you anything, it probably isn't forming you or stretching you in a way that's beneficial.
Yeah.
[00:03:43] Speaker D: Right.
[00:03:43] Speaker C: I mean, love, the ideal frequency of love, is super high, super positive, life affirming, life validating. If there are moments that love, your truth, your purpose, your soul path is asking you to break a pattern or step into something new, you might be like, oh, that is inconvenient and uncomfortable.
It's still love. Because our inherent state is one of change and growth collaborating with the life force. We gotta get comfortable with that. It's not a constant, it's not certainty, but it is expansive.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're not condoning any type of abuse or violence, but we do believe, like, the truest form of love tends to ask more of us than we would give up in this love pursuit.
[00:04:39] Speaker C: And I think also, if we're transparent about this, we're thinking about love as a sort of a high consciousness form, Whether that comes through another person or your spiritual path, the learning or growing you're doing outside of that, or it comes in unexpected places.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: We are not talking about combative, hurtful relationships. That is never, ever, ever. Okay.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: All right. Now that that's all cleared up. Y.
I went to the dictionary because the term love catalyst came up, and I wanted to dig into that a little bit. According to Merriam Webster, a catalyst is something that provokes or speeds significant change or action.
[00:05:26] Speaker C: Provokes or speeds significant change or action.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Not exploring love. It's like Karen said, this feeling that we chase, but this beautiful force that continues to shape us if we allow it.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Yeah. It's a beautiful sort of alchemized transaction. Right. Like, I hear you. I receive love. I exhibit love.
And I say yes to the expansive.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yes. I say yes to the kind of love that changes how I show up in the world.
Yes to the type of love that I get from my friends, where it's, like, reveals where I'm still protecting myself. Yes to the type of love that asks for honesty instead of performance. Yes to the type of love that invites maturity when we'd rather just stay childish.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: The love that shines a light in dark places.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: What a beautiful gift that is if someone sort of challenges you with I see you and I love you. And I noticed.
Have you noticed when, when I say this kind of thing, you go into protection mode or whatever. And that is not, you know, we can human react tend to defensiveness, but it's inviting in an openness and a curiosity about, well, what. What does that awareness mean? How does that serve me? How does that serve my path?
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Yep. So that's what we're talking about. This love catalyst.
This love is a catalyst that initiates our growth even when it disrupts our comfort. If you've ever wondered why something can feel hard and loving at the same time, you should listen into this episode because you just might be in the middle of being formed.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: Like a little ball play.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: D'oh. Yeah. In thinking through this, I have come to the conclusion that discernment matters with this type of love. Because when we say that it costs us something, it's easy for us to get confused or afraid. Like a little fear creeps in. It's like, wait, I don't want it if it's gonna cost me something. Like, I've already given up so much for all of these other things. Why does love also demand this of me? And I want to slow that down. Because we're not trying to measure love by how it feels in the moment.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: It's what comes after the equal sign in the equation, right?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because sometimes there is this assumption that if it feels good, then it's loving. If this is puffing me up, if this is feeding my ego, then obviously this is loving. And if it's the opposite, if I'm a little bit uncomfortable, then something is wrong. This situation, this experience is not loving for me. And.
[00:08:13] Speaker C: And the funny thing is, it's literally the opposite. If someone truly sees you and loves you and is in your life to help you feel safe and loved as you expand and grow and develop your own deeper self love and self awareness, then great. It's not going to always feel safe like cherries and roses.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Right. Because we are being stretched and we are invited to slow down. We are having our protection patterns exposed and woo.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: That's the big one.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: And that's not easy. That is hard to do because.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: Because our nervous system's like, well, hell no. That feels scary.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Absolutely not.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: Shut it down immediately.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Immediately. So here's the shift that I invite us all to, is that this formation expands us while harm diminishes us.
Formation expands you, harm diminishes you.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: And I just want to point out, since we are kind of dancing on the precipice of partner or love relationships.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:26] Speaker C: It can feel super exciting and ungrounding, especially in the beginning. As you meet someone, notice that, because that is exciting and part of it. But if it's truly healthy, if it's truly expansive, it's a truly supportive relationship.
Your nervous system will settle down and feel safe. If you're constantly feeling, like, whizzing, that's a message from your body that maybe this is not the safest place for you.
I love. That's been my experience.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: She says from personal experience, that this formative love, this catalyst, it's not saying that you have to abandon who you are and change everything about you, or you have to shrink who you are or stay silent or betray what you know is true about you. It actually, even in all of the discomfort, it will increase your capacity. It increases your capacity for honesty, for.
[00:10:25] Speaker C: Presence, for deep connection with self as well as the other.
[00:10:30] Speaker D: Right.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that is what makes it a little bit inconvenient, because it's not just letting us stay where we are.
It is very easy. We've talked about it before, especially in our episode, about comfort zones, about how easy it is to stay there. Once you made that move towards this formative love catalyst, you're like, but it was so much easier before. I liked where I was before. But, baby, you weren't growing.
[00:10:55] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, how many. I feel like there's so many, like, philosophers and authors and speakers who have talked about that idea that it's cozy and warm in there. It's like, yeah, because that's where you've been for the last three decades. Of course it feels cozy and warm. Maybe these aspects aren't serving you, or have you considered that you haven't grown or expanded your skill set, the deepening of love or the way you carry yourself in a social situation? Have you considered that there's other factors involved? You know?
Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. It's not always comfortable, but I feel like once you get in the groove of understanding how it really works and how it's activating a higher sense of you or higher self, then it becomes a little less inconvenient and a little more comfortable in the process, in the change.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: So I like how.
[00:11:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it becomes more comfortable, less inconvenient.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And I don't think this love, this inconvenience is like an accident. I don't think it's an accident at all. Because when we are in this formative love and we are saying it shows up at the wrong time or in the wrong way or in ways that we weren't planning to give.
That is actually just right on time for the growth that we need through this formative love that we seek internally.
It doesn't arrive when we feel like we're ready or we feel like we have everything that we need or we're fully healed. It shows up right in the middle of everything else that we have going on. So when we're busy, when we're tired, when we're completely attached to keeping things as they are, that's when it shows.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Tap, tap, tap.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: That's when it comes. This formative love is not interested in preserving our comfort. It's interested in how we grow and remember what is true about how we show up in the world.
[00:12:58] Speaker C: Love is interested in expanding its own expansion, right? In creating more of itself.
And if that means looking in the shadows and. And going into places that you might not necessarily want to go, right? Love is like, well, you signed up for this experience. So we gonna love, and we're gonna love bigger, we're gonna love stronger, and we can love better.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: And it might show up in these relationships that invite us to grow instead of perform, or in setting and keeping boundaries that cost us approval, or speaking our truth firmly. It's not gonna land with everybody like this and say it. And being okay with that, or as I think, through the seasons of grief that didn't let me just bypass them or move on from them too quickly, but let me sit in it like, that is love, and that is the inconvenient part.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
Life will show you the places.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: So I'm curious.
Why do you think that inconvenience is the thing that makes us question love first? Like, if it doesn't show up when we want to, or if it's not in the package that we want it to be, or whatever, like, why is that? The thing is, like, oh, this can't be.
[00:14:19] Speaker C: Well, we've been sold a lie, right? We've been sold a story that this is what love looks like. And love's job is to keep you safe and protected.
That love, true love, real love, if you love me, you will perform this way, act this way, behave this way. You know what I mean? Like, we get all these. The construct the rule set of what society or our family feels like. This is what love is. And you're like, okay, got it.
And it's just a limited viewpoint is all. You know, no shade. It's just a limited perception of Love.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: So this love, this formative love, on this side of the awareness of how beautiful the experience actually is, it's clear to me that just because it's shaping me in a way that I didn't expect. And when I say shaping me, I don't just mean, like, my environment, but I mean within me as well. That it's not a delay if it doesn't show up the way that I want. It's not a denial, it's not a loss.
Something within me is changing, and I'm here for it. The more that I lean into and embrace the idea and the truth that it is a catalyst for me, the more quickly I rebound from, like, that didn't quite feel good. I don't like that this is inconvenient. But then you see the benefits, that changes, that shifts your perspective so quickly. It's like, yes, this thing is not how I thought it would be, but I have learned so much, I have gained so much. And this is actually better for me because I'm not thinking that love, or believing the lie that love is a reward for when everything is all figured out, or love is something that I withhold to people that deserve it, or an experience that is incomplete if it didn't look the way that I wanted it to.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: Like removing as best we can, the judgment of the perception of what it's supposed to feel like, according to who, according to what.
Staying open to the idea that love shows up in many forms and always has our best interests at heart.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: And then the lie that love is a reward, like we tell ourselves, once this thing is over, or once I figure this out, or once I stop doing this, then I'll be worthy of even receiving love or sharing love.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: That's a big one for people.
Love right out of the gate.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: It does.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: You don't have to do anything.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: I was also thinking through in preparing for this episode, like in chemistry, what a catalyst is, it's in a science experiment, but I'm going to use it to apply to love. And a love catalyst in chemistry, a catalyst doesn't wait for everything to be finished before it does what it does in the experiment. It enters the process while the other chemicals are still doing their own thing. The process is still in process, but the catalyst is like, we going to change this up. We. We are going to switch it up really quickly. We're going to either accelerate what's already happening, we're going to make a bubble faster, or it's gonna reveal what needs to shift or what needs attention in this experiment. And I'm like, yes, that is what formative love does. It participates in our process of remembering who we are.
[00:17:36] Speaker C: Oh, shoot.
When you said the process is in the processor, I was like, oh, stop. I can't.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: I was so good.
And as we think about not even like a romantic love, like the loving of ourselves and loving of people, like, there is something that shifts when we realize that we don't have to be ready to experience love.
So when you, Karen, in your experience, like, once you have that realization, what kind of pressure fell away from you?
[00:18:08] Speaker C: All the pressure. Agape love, baby. Like, love. Like, just love for everyone and everything on a grand scale. It just helps me to see that it's everywhere, right? Like, love is. I can have an interaction with somebody I have never met. And it is like, there it is. There's love that was an expression of love or smiling at someone or having someone wish me a good day. I'm like, oh, it's everywhere. We all want to connect on that level, right? Of love. And it's just, oh, it's so beautiful.
You kind of have to open to it and be looking for it or know what to look for, right?
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Because it's going to meet you when you're not ready, when you feel like you aren't ready, finished, aren't resolved, aren't complete. And whatever it is, because it is showing up to shape you. And doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight, but it happens slowly and relationally over time. I say I love you to my friends when I see them when I'm leaving, they're like, ah, she did. Oh, yeah. I mean it.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
Because I have taken people off guard by saying yes in the last six months.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: It'll just fall out of your mouth like, oh, But I mean it, though.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: I mean it on a deep level.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: I'm not looking for anything in return. But I want you to know today that in this moment, that I love you. You don't ever really know what that phrase, that one for three would do for someone. You don't know what they're going through. And you saying that change the trajectory of their day, their week, their month, their life. Because your love is showing up in their mess. You're not waiting for them to have everything all figured out. You're not saying that they need to earn it, that they are worthy of it, that they got to be somebody else before I can offer it. No, I'm gonna do it because I. I' ma do it.
[00:19:52] Speaker C: Yeah, right. 100%.
So good. When people start to feel that from you, when you become that container and that amplification of love, people feel that and it affects them, even if they don't know what has transpired, you know? Absolutely.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: So we invite this love that is already at work catalyzing our growth and invoking honesty right here, right now. To you listening to this episode, invite it in. Choose it.
Considering the state of this beautiful world that you and I live on right now, I wanted to bring a song. I can't believe we didn't use this song last year.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: Okay, now you have me curious.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: And what is this?
Because this song is a reminder that when we talk about love, it doesn't necessarily reward us or flatter us or wait for us to be ready. It's not really asking for more romance, more noise, or for it to be more intense. It's just asking for you to change how you live with the people around you. And it has been echoing this truth for decades. Karen's like, what song is it playing through different times in your head? What the World Needs now, of course, by Jackie DeShannon.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Check out this week's song on the yo podcast playlist on Sports Spotify.
[00:21:22] Speaker C: Oh, got to love a little low brass section, you know what I'm saying?
Doesn't get warmer than that.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: I was going to say the same thing. You know, it's a serious song. When the brass section comes in.
[00:21:34] Speaker C: When the brass comes in, we're like, we ain't playing. We ain't messing around.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: We need this stuff serious.
[00:21:41] Speaker C: Do you know, for years I thought that song was sung either by Dionne.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Warwick or she did do a version. She did a version.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Oh, she did do a version.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah, she.
[00:21:51] Speaker C: But I never heard the name Jackety Shadow until, like, I don't know, 10 years ahead.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: This is the only thing that I think it was offered to somebody else and they said, I don't know, whatever it is. But no, Dionne Warwick, she did do a version of this song.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: That's right. She did do a version. I love this original one.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: The Brass section.
What the World Needs Now.
[00:22:16] Speaker C: It's just so great.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Let love shape how you show up. Let it shape how you show up in your relationships and your boundaries and most especially in the way that we care for ourselves and one another.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Like, bring the love, Bring it sauce. More love, more love. All the herbs, all the spices of love.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Bring it.
All right, that brings us to today's question of the day.
[00:22:40] Speaker C: The Q O T D. Woo.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Now, I don't Know if you go with that.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: I was trying to flip it a little bit. I'm like, whoa. I'm like, all right, let's do this.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Afraid where in your life might love be trying to form you, even if it feels inconvenient right now?
[00:23:04] Speaker D: Do you.
[00:23:05] Speaker C: Five or ten?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah, bring all 20 of them. Just bring the whole list.
[00:23:09] Speaker C: Would you like to go first or would you like me to go.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: I got something for it. So, like, where love is trying to form me is telling me to stay with my discomfort long enough to learn what it's trying to teach me, not just trying to speed up through it and be like, oh, okay, we did that. Move on to the next thing. It's like, nah, sit in it. So if something, you know, sit down, Tara.
Love knows that I need to be.
[00:23:39] Speaker C: I'm lovingly encouraged to directly encourage to.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Sit down because I am really good at intellectualizing and maybe sometimes over intellectualizing the situation. Like, especially if it brushes up against something, I'd be like, oh, that was a little uncomfortable. And I know why it's uncomfortable. Like, how can I grow through this? So the next time that this situation comes up, I don't gotta be like, well, I hypothesize that this thing.
No, sit in it. What is it telling you? What is it trying to teach you and be okay with being a student for a second?
[00:24:15] Speaker C: Oh, you mean to listen to it? You mean to, like, just try to.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: Tell it what to do?
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Right? You're saying to listen to it. To absorb, process, and listen to the lesson.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that is very inconvenient for me.
Yeah.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Because you have a magnificent brain and it does like to Rolodex and spin through. It'd be like, I got it.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: And with this.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: No, sit down, sit down. You're not listening. Sit down. Feel it, Feel it.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: That's what. Yeah. So listen.
[00:24:53] Speaker C: That is good. I find I'm maybe repeat it just so that I can.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:58] Speaker C: Tether my answer. But I have no answer where in.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Your life love might be trying to form you, even if it feels inconvenient right now.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: So, interestingly enough for me, love is coming in to help me notice where I've extended myself too far or I actually need to pull back and in responsibility so that I can be like my full activated love self. It's actually shifting relationships in my life on many fronts.
Love is like, it's okay.
This is ultimately the goal. And I'm a little like, yeah, but the people and the things.
And then it's like, no, no, it's okay. You can relax and trust me, this is all gonna work out. The things and the ways that it was being. And you're saying what? You know. So to me, love has been showing me where to center and trust and to allow the things that need to fall away to do so.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:10] Speaker C: Yeah. That's huge for somebody, for a formal enabler and nurturer, that is a big ask and a tricky thing.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:20] Speaker C: It's like, wait, so you're saying I should take care of myself in these ways so that you can continue to expand through me? If I have all of these tethers, like, on my hot air balloon, we ain't leaving the ground.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: You won't.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: We're just gonna stay right there. No matter how hot the fire is, no matter what the gases are giving off, if we're tethered, we're tethered. So you're saying loosen the tethers. Okay, got it. Still not easy.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: That is also very inconvenient. And I know, but I got it. I can. I can fix this. I can make this okay for everyone.
[00:26:52] Speaker C: Like, I could do this and that.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: But I'm not asking you to do all of that. Could you sit down?
[00:26:57] Speaker C: Sit at, like, listen.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Sit down.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: Listen.
How many times a day do you use that word?
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Listen, listen, listen.
[00:27:06] Speaker C: And there it is.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: All right, I got it.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: And for me, it's listen and trust. Trust that. Trust.
Right? I've. I've. Yeah. So the allowing and the surrendering and the letting go, that's all been huge acts of faith, huge acts of trust for me.
And I continue to lean into that, and it is dicey at times.
It is that feeling I was explaining earlier in my stomach. It's like, mmm, yeah.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: All right. I don't even know what to say after that. But I do have a quote from American author, feminist and cultural critic, bell hooks.
Love is not something you feel.
It is something you practice.
Love is not something you feel. It is something you practice. And I love how much room that gives us.
Like, it gives us room to know that love isn't something we have or don't have. It's not something we master, but it gives us room to just do it, to choose it, to not perform it. And sometimes in the choosing and the practicing, it's awkward, it's imperfect, and it stretches us way more than we expected it to. That's okay. That's when you know that this love is forming you. That's when you know that this love is acting as a catalyst in your life.
The practice matters more than the feeling.
[00:28:40] Speaker C: Yeah. And the practice is like that active participation. There's not one right way to do it. It's giving you that allowing. Whereas the feeling is a feeling. It's a little more abstract, but also it's a little sort of comfortable and easy. It's kind of. I love that. I mean, feeling is part of the practice. Right. But it's a practice.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Like we said last year, like, love is an action. It's not just the feeling. Love is how we show up. Love is being honest. Love is being willing to stay present long enough for the things that need to shift and be formed in us to take shape.
All right y' all explorers, this has been good night. Thank you so much for being here. We are glad that you are walking this love thing out with us and exploring love not as just something that we feel, but as something that forms us gently over time. Until next time, explorers, notice where this love is shaping you and keep practicing love with honesty.
[00:29:43] Speaker C: This exploration has been joyful, interesting and full of love. Thank you so much for being here with us, Explorers. We do love you so much. Take good care.
[00:29:57] Speaker D: Thank you to Queenies in downtown Durham for the use of their community podcast studio and for welcoming us so warmly. Each week we'd like to give a shout out to Cococinnam, the birthplace of 1023 Media and the yo podcast. Please support your local women owned minority owned coffee shop in downtown Durham.
Brought to you by Durham based 1023 Media, a heart centered woman owned multimedia company.
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