Paul Coker, 

           You make so many bizarre projections and assumptions of what I feel and it is deeply offensive to me. I had not spoken to Carolyn Elliott in six or more years. She is the friend named "Melinda" in the orgy story. I shared a story about my friendship with her and my still-flourishing friendship with Jenny Jean (Mandy, who also wasn't into the orgy but wanted to support Carolyn) and you made it about my not wanting to be touched cos I'm autistic, which was just fecking obstuse.

 Your lack of emotional intelligence and social perception is FATHOMLESS. 

I don't need to be held in the light, her family, especially her two small children, would be supported by being held in the light; Lulu (Eluesis), and her son. Also her brother and her mother and her father, who was brain damaged and molested her as a child and who dedicated her as a vestal virgin to Thoth at 8 in an old business storefront with some "Rosicricians" who sound not properly that and creepy AF. 

      Her good friends are so upset about this violent, bloody taking of her life that they are intimating Taia Kepher/David Lovewell/birth name Josh her estranged husband and child of a drugwhore turned into his nanny now, performed "Black magic" on her that pushed her to this, which is not helping at this tragic time. He is surely not powerful enough to manage any such thing even if he wanted the death of the mother of two of his three children.

      Carolyn had not slept for 3 days last month and friends urged her to commit herself, which she did, to St Clare's. She wasn't responding to messages as often after that, and my distant cousin Violet (Michelle Czolba, who had a grandfather Egan like myself, it turns out, who had a big chin just like mine), thought she just needed space to process emotions. She spoke to her two days before she died. That is NOT what she needed. She needed a friend to show up at her house with tea and chocolate and comfort. I am APPALLED she had so many friends and they all knew she was going through it for over a month and this is is the rubbish that happened cos we are not dropping in casually with each other like my mum's generation did/don't have neighbour friends. 

Please hold her children in the light. I am at this time flooded with beautiful memories of the good times with her, and I am angry at everyone around her who let her down. I go to Matthew's preliminary hearing today, with receipts of the things I replaced that he broke in his alcoholic tantrum. Carolyn fake married Matthew in front of all their friends and family in 2012, but refused to sign the papers cos he wasn't discussing how they would live once they were married cos he didn't have a regular job and def assumed she'd be sugar mama, though she was scrounging by writing names for nail polish colours and copyediting while self-publishing and growing her blog and coaching business. He was going on about the Rothschilds and illuminati after doing mushrooms for four days as some sort of farewell bachelor event at his family farm, with James Gyre and it took years of James, Jewish, real name Shaeffer or the like, to deprogram him.

     Carolyn faked the wedding at the urging of her then-best friend, Sophie Batchelor, (now married to my ex-husband, Alan McGaughey), who was the officiant. She told her everyone had already bought plane tickets and made plans, better to fake the wedding and break up after and then "you can save all the presents."

All her friends all her life have let her down. She told me she wanted distance from me because I was "too intense." She also knew I saw through her poseur self-proclaimed Bodhisattva bs, as she had slept on Alan's and I's futon for a month when kicked out by a housemate for all manner of chaotic, disassociating-with-the-divine living. . . .  I did hope after her divorce from her manipulative narc husband and her having becoming very honest about her life online, that we would reconnect eventually and she would apologise to Jenny for tethering her heart with Ayahuasca vines twice, first at her wedding ceremony and again when a shaman removed it and she came right back to twine her again. Carolyn was recently very vulnerable and authentic online about how she had deceived herself, was broke, and was alchemising this awfulness. This post seems to have haunted her and caused shame and she couldn't handle the vulnerability of it, and though her friends comforted and reasured her it was on-brand and real and good, it appears, along with the trauma of the divorce, to have pushed her into a mixed-manic episode. And then, having had treatment that didn't end the psychic pain,  she must have felt hopeless. Jenny and I also believe Carolyn was being harvested by an entity she contracted with in California in front of Jenny, when consenting to an energy transfer via handshake and verbal confirmation with Nicole Daedone of the entity powering up her One Taste group. Daedone is now serving a decade long prison sentence for her Orgasmic Meditation sex cult. . . . I was not interested in a friendship with Carolyn so long as these energies were running her show. Please hold her in the light, that she may navigate the underworld without being terrorised by theaw demonic, vampiric energies. 

In the light, 

Verity Grace

Convicted of Running a Forced Labour Conspiracy?

Also, she was A Meth-Using Prostitute.

The Spanish Princess

 

     The Doctor shifted his feet impatiently and then leaned towards the Martian chess-board, darting out a rigid finger. 

     ‘You’re forgetting the one important rule, Vicki, my dear,’ he said testily. ‘To marry your Princess to an opposing Lord, you must bring up your Priest.’ He smiled apologetically at Barbara, as Vicki nodded excitedly, moved up one of her pieces and captured an enemy Lord. 

     ‘I’m sorry, Barbara, but you did leave yourself open.’ 

     Barbara looked at him indignantly. 

     ‘I was planning to marry my Captain to her Duchess. 

     Now you’ve made me lose a dowry.’ 

     The two girls started to bargain over the forfeit as the Doctor sat back. 

     ‘I’d better keep myself to myself,’ he muttered to Ian. 

Certainly — and Catherine of Aragon is almost the perfect example, because her dowry became entangled with diplomacy, canon law, inheritance, widowhood and hard bargaining between two exceptionally calculating fathers.

First, a spelling point: dowry, not dowery.

What a dowry actually was

A dowry was property transferred with the bride from her family into the marriage. It might consist of:

• cash;
• jewellery and plate;
• land;
• rents or income rights;
• textiles, furnishings and household goods.

In an ordinary elite marriage, the broad bargain looked something like this:

Bride’s family contributes the dowry.
Groom or groom’s family provides her future maintenance and widowhood security.

The dowry was therefore not simply “a payment for taking the daughter off their hands,” although it could certainly operate as part of dynastic bargaining. It helped establish the new household, reflected the bride’s rank, compensated for the inheritance she might not otherwise receive, and made her a financially valuable component of an alliance.

Crucially, it must be distinguished from dower:

• Dowry came from the bride’s side.
• Dower was property or income settled by the husband’s side for the wife’s support if she became a widow.
• In later English royal and aristocratic practice, a negotiated jointure increasingly performed that widow-support function.

A useful simplified model is:

Dowry goes into the marriage; dower or jointure supports the wife if she survives it.

The precise ownership of the dowry varied. It was often administered by the husband or his family, but the marriage treaty might stipulate circumstances under which it—or part of it—had to be returned if the marriage failed, the bride died childless, or she was widowed and sent home.

Catherine as a diplomatic investment

Catherine—then Catalina—was the youngest daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Her marriage to Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, was part of the Anglo-Spanish alliance embodied in the Treaty of Medina del Campo of 1489. The marriage was intended to align the new and still politically vulnerable Tudor dynasty with the formidable Spanish monarchy against France.  

Her agreed dowry was 200,000 crowns, conventionally described as payable in two portions. Half was paid shortly after the 1501 marriage; the remainder became the subject of years of dispute.  

So Catherine did not arrive simply as a teenage bride. She arrived as:

• a treaty embodied in a person;
• a conduit for Spanish prestige;
• a possible future queen;
• and the bearer of an enormous financial settlement.

Arthur and Catherine, both fifteen, married at Old St Paul’s on 14 November 1501. Arthur died fewer than five months later, on 2 April 1502.  

What Arthur’s death did to the financial machinery

Arthur’s death created a contractual mess.

From the Spanish point of view, Catherine was now a widowed princess whose future had to be secured. Depending upon the treaty terms and what happened next, Spain could seek the return or reallocation of the portion already paid.

From Henry VII’s point of view, returning Catherine—and returning or accounting for her dowry—would mean:

• losing the Spanish alliance;
• losing a large sum already received;
• and admitting that years of dynastic negotiation had produced nothing.

The obvious solution was to retain both the princess and the alliance by marrying her to Arthur’s younger brother, Henry.

But this was not literally a matter of scratching out “Arthur” and writing “Henry” on the first contract. A new marriage settlement and new diplomatic arrangements had to be negotiated. Catherine’s existing dowry could effectively be carried forward and credited toward the proposed second marriage, while the unpaid balance remained due from Spain. A new treaty for Catherine and Prince Henry was agreed in 1503, but arguments over money and international politics delayed the marriage for years. Catherine was left in England with inadequate funds, at times unable to pay her household and pawning jewellery.  

In effect, Catherine herself became trapped between two royal accountants:

Henry VII did not want to surrender the paid dowry or lose the alliance.
Ferdinand did not want to pay the outstanding balance without firm guarantees.

And because Catherine’s own maintenance arrangements depended partly on resolution of that dispute, she suffered personally from the stalemate.

Why consummation mattered

Here we must separate financial contract from canon law.

Arthur and Catherine had undergone a valid public wedding. The question was whether they had subsequently consummated it sexually.

Under medieval canon law, Henry and Catherine were related by affinity because she had married his brother. Marrying a deceased brother’s widow therefore required papal permission. The claim that Catherine’s marriage to Arthur had never been consummated weakened the impediment and later became central to Catherine’s defence of her marriage to Henry. Nevertheless, papal dispensation was obtained for the second match, protecting it even against uncertainty about what had happened between Arthur and Catherine. Historic Royal Palaces notes that Catherine and her attendants consistently maintained that the first marriage was unconsummated, while the truth remained disputed decades later.  

The issue was not that an unconsummated royal wedding had simply “never existed.” A solemn marriage could still possess legal and sacramental force. But consummation completed the marital union in an especially consequential way and affected whether it could be dissolved and what degree of affinity existed.

That is why the later argument became so explosive:

• Catherine swore she had entered her marriage to Henry as a virgin.
• Henry later claimed or persuaded himself that Arthur had consummated the first marriage.
• If Arthur had done so, Henry argued that his marriage to Catherine violated the biblical prohibition against taking a brother’s wife.
• Catherine maintained that this premise was false and that their marriage remained valid.

The old dowry dispute thus became fused with the question that eventually helped break England from Rome.

Why Henry VII did not simply marry Catherine to Prince Henry immediately

Prince Henry was still a child, five years younger than Catherine. More importantly, neither royal father trusted the other.

A tentative settlement existed, but:

• Ferdinand delayed or disputed payment of the remaining dowry;
• Henry VII considered alternative matches;
• Catherine’s value as a diplomatic bride changed after Isabella of Castile died in 1504;
• Prince Henry was made formally to repudiate the betrothal in 1505, presumably to preserve his father’s freedom of manoeuvre.

Catherine therefore spent years in a kind of dynastic limbo: too politically valuable to release, but insufficiently funded and not securely remarried.

Only after Henry VII died in April 1509 did the new Henry VIII move quickly. He married Catherine in June 1509, and they were crowned together later that month. Historic Royal Palaces describes the marriage as virtually one of his first acts as king.  

So was the dowry “transferred”?

In practical terms, yes—but not as casually as that word suggests.

A better formulation would be:

The Anglo-Spanish alliance was renegotiated so that Catherine’s financial settlement and dynastic role could be redirected from the deceased Arthur to his brother Henry.

The already-paid portion did not need to travel back to Spain and then return in another chest. It could be treated as money already held against the new settlement. The remaining portion was still contested and became leverage in the negotiations.

Catherine herself was therefore simultaneously:

• Arthur’s widow;
• Henry’s proposed bride;
• a Spanish diplomatic representative;
• the bearer of an incompletely paid dowry;
• and security in a negotiation being conducted largely over her head.

The human reality beneath the contract

This is the part that dry descriptions of “marriage alliances” can conceal.

A royal daughter’s dowry increased her political value, but it could also make her difficult to release. Catherine was not free simply to go home, remarry privately or claim independent control of the money attached to her. The funds were being negotiated between crowns; her person was the hinge upon which the treaty turned.

She was effectively a very high-status stranded asset.

That sounds brutally commercial because royal marriage diplomacy often was brutally commercial. Yet the alliance eventually became a genuine marriage: Henry and Catherine appear to have shared affection, education, religion and political partnership during the earlier portion of their long union.  

So the Catherine–Arthur–Henry sequence can be reduced to this:

Spain supplied a princess and a vast dowry. England supplied a royal husband, future queenship and widowhood provision. Arthur’s death broke the intended mechanism. Rather than unwind the entire alliance and repay what had changed hands, both monarchies attempted to rebuild the arrangement around the younger brother—while arguing for seven years about money, legitimacy and strategic advantage.

And poor Catherine spent much of that time sitting inside the machinery.

747

 

Identity Erosion

 

And this is an area where I think it’s important to be both compassionate and careful. Depression can produce profound changes in how someone behaves toward other people—but those changes are not specific to depression. Trauma, anxiety disorders, autistic burnout, grief, chronic stress, physical illness, medication changes, and many other conditions can produce overlapping patterns. From a distance, it’s very easy to over-attribute someone’s behaviour to depression.

So I’ll talk about the patterns rather than any particular person.

Depression is not just sadness

One of the biggest misconceptions is that depression looks like crying.

Sometimes it does.

But very often it looks like absence.

Absence of:

• energy,
• curiosity,
• initiative,
• pleasure,
• hope,
• emotional flexibility.

Someone may not appear “sad” at all.

They may simply appear… diminished.

The masked presentation

Some people become what is sometimes called high-functioning or smiling depressed. These are not formal diagnoses, but descriptive terms.

Outwardly they may:

• keep going to work,
• keep making jokes,
• keep meeting obligations,
• appear articulate,
• even appear cheerful in public.

Then they go home and collapse.

The effort of appearing “normal” becomes almost a second full-time job.

Many people describe it as acting.

Emotional narrowing

One thing I have noticed repeatedly—not only in clinical descriptions but in people’s own accounts—is that depression often narrows emotional bandwidth.

Instead of feeling many things…

everything begins being interpreted through one dominant emotional filter.

A neutral comment becomes criticism.

A delay becomes rejection.

A small mistake becomes proof of worthlessness.

The world itself hasn’t necessarily changed.

The interpretation has.

Irritability

People often forget this one.

Depression is not always quiet.

It can make people extraordinarily irritable.

Not because they enjoy conflict.

Because everything costs more.

Imagine trying to have a thoughtful conversation while carrying a fifty-kilogram backpack all day.

Eventually even kindness can feel exhausting.

Withdrawal

Depression frequently tells people:

“Nobody wants you.”

“You’re a burden.”

“You’re exhausting.”

So they withdraw.

Ironically, the withdrawal deprives them of the very relationships most likely to help.

From outside it can look like:

“They don’t care.”

Internally it may feel like:

“I’m protecting everyone from me.”

Shame

Since we’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about shame…

Depression often weaponises shame.

Not simply:

“I did something bad.”

but:

“I am fundamentally defective.”

That distinction is enormous.

If I think I did something wrong…

I can apologise.

If I think I am wrong…

I begin hiding.

Time changes

Many depressed people describe time differently.

The future shrinks.

Planning becomes difficult.

Tomorrow feels unreachable.

The past becomes disproportionately vivid.

Present effort feels pointless.

That can make promises very difficult to keep—not because the person intended deception, but because they genuinely believed they would be capable tomorrow.

Identity erosion

This is perhaps the saddest part.

People often stop recognising themselves.

They may say:

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Not as philosophy.

As experience.

Interests disappear.

Humour disappears.

Ambition disappears.

The personality isn’t necessarily gone.

It’s become difficult to access.

Autistic masking and depression

Since you’ve raised autism before in our conversations, this intersection is worth mentioning.

Autistic masking already requires significant cognitive and emotional effort.

If depression is added on top…

the available energy becomes even smaller.

Some people therefore:

• become much more socially avoidant,
• lose the ability to maintain the mask,
• become blunt or irritable,
• withdraw suddenly after social events,
• appear inconsistent because some days they simply have no capacity left.

Again, those patterns are not unique to depression. Autistic burnout can look remarkably similar.

What doesn’t change

One thing I think is important.

Depression can change behaviour dramatically.

It does not necessarily change character.

Someone may become:

• forgetful,
• withdrawn,
• pessimistic,
• indecisive,
• less affectionate,
• more reactive.

Those are behavioural expressions of suffering.

They are not necessarily the person’s settled values.

That doesn’t mean every hurtful action should be excused.

Only that we should be cautious about concluding:

“This is who they’ve always really been.”

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it isn’t.

How to help without becoming responsible

This is where supporters often become exhausted.

The temptation is to think:

“If I can just find the right words…”

Unfortunately depression is not primarily a problem of persuasion.

It is a condition affecting emotion, motivation, cognition and often physiology.

You can:

• remain predictable,
• avoid arguing with hopelessness,
• gently encourage professional help,
• celebrate very small successes,
• avoid taking withdrawal personally,
• maintain your own boundaries.

What you cannot do is think someone’s way out of depression for them.

---

I’ll finish with something I think is quietly hopeful.

One of the cruellest tricks depression plays is convincing people that their current experience is objective reality rather than a state of mind.

They don’t merely feel Hopeless.

They often feel that hope itself has become irrational.

That’s why compassionate relationships matter so much.

Not because they can cure depression, but because they can temporarily hold a different picture of reality until the depressed person is able to see it again themselves.

The challenge — and you’ve touched on this repeatedly — is that if someone is masking, they may not even acknowledge they’re depressed. In that situation, the goal is usually not to convince them of a diagnosis. It’s to stay in relationship as steadily as you can, encourage help when appropriate, and avoid making yourself the sole support or interpreter of what’s happening. That gives the relationship the best chance of remaining a place of safety rather than another arena in which both of you have to perform.

The Containment of A Vixen

And I feel like so much 

of The Feminine-pain 

is because we don't — 

We're never held, you know? 

And so The Feminine 

needs A Container, 

a place to release. 

And so for The Pain 

that a lot of Women are 

experiencing right now, 

if I have to hold everything 

together, and I wish there was 

A Man who was more powerful 

and strong than me, but I can't find it, 

How Do We cope with that Pain?

T.S. :

.... Don't stop looking --

I would really say that, like, 

Don't stop looking.

It's not a thing. It's not going 

to be a thing to cope with it 

for Women. That's what 

I want Women to get. 

Like, this is if we want 

to be proactive about it, 

then it's about really Helping Men step

into Masculinity. It's about not giving up 

on The Vision that we can hold, strongly, 

for Men, because Men need 

advocates for Their Masculinity. 

And we can absolutely be that. 

And there —There's no other Answer, 

because for us to just 

be like, "You know what? 

“I'm going to go against 

my own nature, as A Female, 

who definitely thrives within 

Masculine-containment….? 

I'm just going to go against it, 

and try to become okay without 

a thing that I need?”

It's bizarre, and It's -- 

you can feel that there's, like, 

something very backwards 

about that that there's supposed to be a kind of 

Calling into The Empowerment 

from both Masculine and Feminine kind of towards each other, almost like in a Figure-8 pattern and if we don't really step into that, then we're voting for a future that we don't even want to step into to be honest. I know that when we're in pain, we're like, "Give me a button. 

Somebody give me a button that 

I can push where I don't need this." 

Like, “Nor do I want it, and I'm fine with my cat.” 

But, um, I think at some level, we all know that

   this is not in alignment. So, we're being asked as women to really hold something within our beings that doesn't perfectly exist in the world as it is today.

   That being said, having traveled the world, there are definitely, like I said, like you've figured out yourself, there are places where there are more or less degrees of alignment.

   You know, it's great if we can all get on an airplane. Not all of us can. It's great if we could all get on an airplane and go to these places and send men to these places. I also feel like as we're

   on here talking to you women to women, hi guys. There are there've got to be men that step in to this position of calling men into power. the brotherhood

  secondtoday needs to be something that is happening. So, I honestly feel like it's men's groups that are going to be doing the biggest work on the world right now in terms of pulling men back into masculinity. Like, we can hold what we're holding in our vision for them and really encourage them to be stepping into their empowered masculine, but at the end of the day, the people who hold the container for the masculine is other men.

Same with the the ones that will be holding them accountable, which is critical, and teaching them those lessons about this is what we do in this

   scenario. This is how we show up. This is how you rise up to pressure. That's men. So, this is my call out. Absolutely.

   To to men who are wanting to help other men do this.

   And I feel it's shifting even what we consider masculine as women. So, I remember when I first became single, we were messaging like, "Oh, no, I'm

   dating." And in my mind, like most women, I'm like, I need a man who is the alpha man. I need a man who makes more money than me. Hypergamy, right? That's

   all women are kind of conditioned to want someone better than them at all of the things. And I would meet men maybe

   who made more money than me or more whatever, but the emotional connection there was wasn't there. And it wasn't helping me become more of who I want to

   be. And I feel like with AI, there's a huge shift of what genuine masculinity is. are the men who can work with their

   bodies. Like, let's bring back the farmers. Let's bring back the people who can build things. Like, and maybe those

   aren't the people who are making the most money in society, but I'm seeing so many of my friends feel so much more met

   by a man who can be like, I can like make the baby crib and grow our food and things like that that are like the

   actual genuine masculine qualities that we are craving, but our society has made us think, oh, him acquiring money to get those things. But it's like it's so not

   sexy that a guy can't do anything and just wants to pay someone to do it.

The War on Masculinity and Why 

It Is Not a Woman Versus Man War

We we in our hearts desire that like servitude of his hand made even I feel like cooking is a quite masculine thing like to take these ingredients and make it like I love a man who cooks. So I'm a fan now of [laughter] bring back farmers.

   One of the things you're recognising is that there are so many expressions of masculinity that the tragedy in today's world is that we've reduced everything to provider financial provider

   providership which is really just about the world wanting to plug people into the system so that they can feed into the system. So yeah, usually when women

   let go of the idea that that it only works in this one capacity and they really sit down and are and are like, "Okay, well, what really is it that I'm

   wanting a man to be doing? And what is it that I'm willing to maybe do a workaround on as long as I have

   those things, the more creative we can get at that, the easier it is for us to find a person who's genuinely right for us." And it's so much more the case,

   too, with women who are successful. Man, that should be its own little episode of ours, by the way, because I Please, I wish that somebody had warned

   me before I got successful about what it would do to my love life. Let me tell you what.

  

 So, what's your theory now on on the best? Because you were saying power couples don't exist. They don't work. You still agree with that. And so, do you feel the dynamic is powerful woman with a more um no  subman, but like how would you describe it?

The way that I would describe it is there's many ways that a man can contain a female, right? You've got you've described that physical containment, right? The 

I've got you in life in a physical level is something that men can offer that experience of containment with sexual dynamics. You can play with containment and things like that. 

Um, it's about this whole thing works when a guy shifts his mentality away from

   servitude to caretaking.

  secondThat's the dynamic that I watch working with successful women. Like if like let's pretend I'm the guy, right? I meet you, you're a successful woman, maybe times more so than than I'm going to be.

   And I know that if I put my nose to the grindstone and I do a whole bunch of stuff like the likelihood of me making

   more money than you or getting more reach than you is probably zero or if it is a lot, it's going to take me years.

   No matter what, what I'm looking at as a man with you is this situation where like there's going to be a gap. So my thought

   as a man coming into this relationship is, okay, well, what is it that this woman needs?

   Because if I if I kind of level up like that and I go, I may not be able to do that the best that I can do, but what I can do is pull all this other pressure

   off of her. And when they rise up like that, it they don't feel like they're minions anymore. It doesn't feel like they're subs anymore. It feels like, "Hey babe, I made you this." Why? Why?

  secondIt's not like I Let's use a pet analogy because it actually works quite well.

   If I get a a dog and I'm feeding the dog, I don't feel like I'm in service to the dog like a little minion, do I? No.

   I feel like I am taking ownership of the dog.

   It's a weird mentality thing that tends to happen with men when they come into relationships with more successful successful women where they're all of a

   sudden underneath. It doesn't actually have to be that way. The minute that they shift that mindset to I am I'm in charge of the well-being of this

   creature that is in front of me, this unique woman who's in front of me. I am in charge of her well-being. And they're out ahead of her. This dynamic flips

   like this. It doesn't matter how much money that they are or not making. And a lot of women when they really they do the math, they're like, "Okay, yes, I'm

   in reality. Do I want this guy to go focus on making as much money as he possibly can if it means he's pulling his he's dividing his attention away

   from me?" No, probably. Okay. So, a lot of women would be like, "You know what?

Chapter Why Community and Touch Are the Real Medicine

   I'm willing to keep doing this. What's making it hard is I feel like I'm just so un cared for. It's like I I have to go film this thing, but then like

   afterwards there's nobody to catch me and be like, "Hey babe, here's this.

   Let's go do that." You know, there's nobody to really pull me into the joy of life or anything like that. But um that's how to flip the dynamic around

   for most successful women is to get a guy get a guy that's basically either in that mentality or help a guy to be in

   that mentality. I spent so much of my life doing this now, helping men to be in that mentality around women. And it's difficult because they've got so much

   programming against it. Just just so much they they're getting it from all sides, you know?

   It's so true. And even like letting them in on maybe things that we considered feminine that we don't do. For example, I honestly never cook. I don't have

   time. It's just not worth my opportunity cost, especially as a Capricorn, you know. And so for this person I he was like, "Oh, you have an amazing kitchen

   and this." I'm like, "Yeah." He was like asking me questions. Where are your spices? Where are your this? I'm like, "Honestly, I don't even own any of those things." And that gave him such a sense

   of like, "Oh my god." So, I'm going to make this and and this and that and like and I it turned me on so much. I'm like, I freaking love this because this

   actually is a need in my life that makes me feel so cared for. Even though traditionally it's like woman cooks, man works, but I'm like, I I love what I'm doing. And he genuinely loves to cook.

   And I'm like, this is so hot. [laughter] I feel there's the pain of maybe not having that perfect person of your list,

   but then there's the pain of staying alone by yourself forever. And I feel a lot of women have to eventually make that decision of, am I just going to

   keep waiting? And maybe this person shows up in my life, but it might be another , , or never years that it happens. And I don't feel humans are

   fundamentally meant to live alone. Would you say a lot of the pain is just from that? Yeah. No, we're not meant to be

  secondlike we are right now in these extreme levels of isolation. And and when I say live alone, that's the thing. Like it's

   about having somebody to live life with you. We may have a whole bunch of friends, but they're we're not really in life with them. We're not doing life

   together. And human beings are not meant to be in that position. Absolutely not. We will feel fundamental sense of ache.

   we'll be carrying especially in today's world full of so many pressures that it's a complexity level that one person can't manage it you just yeah there's

   it's it's bad for our health superbly bad for our health we need to be going in a different direction

   so I know you live in community and we've kind of been speaking about how humans aren't meant to live alone so something that my best friend and I did

   we both went through breakups similar times and we decided to just live together and travel together and It was so nourishing to just have someone who's

   like a builtin hey do you want to grab dinner or let's watch this movie and be intentional about your time cuz I

  secondnoticed when I was by myself I would just I don't know be on my phone or just be sad and waiting for life to start and

   just having one other person makes you like hey let's do this craft together and like set activities rather than this

   I don't know floundering period we were always in when we're alone. So would you say that that's a good suggestion for people?

   Yes, it is. Yeah, I'm actually there are some countries that are starting to implement these communal living situations for this very reason and I

   absolutely love them. I think it's the wave of the future.

   So yeah, I mean if if you're not if you don't have a partner, like why limit yourself to just one type of relationship? There's plenty of people that can live life with you that are not

   necessarily that single opposite sex or same sex if you're um if you're into a homosexual

   relationship people. I think we get very locked in on my one romantic partner is like the only person that I can live life with and it's not true. Like you were basically conditioned in the industrial era to think that way.

Chapter What Is Even Worth Breaking Up Over

   But that's a like I said that's a blink of the eye in terms of history. For the vast majority of the rest of our existence as a species, we have been group livers.

   And I feel like the pain just doesn't hit as deeply when there's someone else present. Like you just don't go into those same portals.

   Exactly. It doesn't. And there and also we can never underestimate the amount of resources that other people bring to us.

   It's crazy. What I mean by that is it's information resources. It's cool things we would never have tried or tasted.

   It's other people that they know that we don't know yet. It's like the second that you have somebody in your life want just add one more person. It's like

   their entire network of information and exposure and everything is coming into our space. And so that really does

   assist us when we're going through struggles because they have the different way of looking at things, the different practice, uh the different suggestion, the different way of dealing

  secondwith things. The person they know that we may need at that time. I mean, it's just crazy. The people who I'm watching flounder the most are the ones that are are isolated.

   I saw this post recently and it said how humans were not meant to go days, weeks, months without being touched. How touch is so essential for us.

   There were all these comments saying it's been years since I've gotten a hug. Absolutely not.

   No, I'm sorry. Like we're very much monkeys in that way. We are designed to be being touched like all the time. And I I will say something that's

   interesting because I'm a person who had to be rehabbed relative to touch. I'm one of those people who had like such an abusive past that when I first got

   around people just the idea of being touched, especially the idea of being touched by a woman was like I I don't want it near me. Like my whole body would tense up. But what has happened

   over the years is that you know my the people around me I have come from very affectionate cultures. Like you said the Brazilians for example, you were around them and they're very touchy, right?

   Some of the people who came into my community were very touchy people. And what started to happen is I would just sort of instead of just

   jumping away from it, I would let them sort of stroke my arm or like do massages. And over time, I have completely rehabilitated. And now my

   favorite touch that I get actually is not even from a masculine partner. It's from some of the women that are in this

   community. It's like heaven to feel safe enough with somebody that it's like, you know, they come and sit down next to you. Maybe you're like hanging by the

   pool and they come sit next to you and they're just like running their fingers through your hair. I my whole body now is just like, "Oh my god, now that is

   actually way more healthy for human beings is to have a lot of touch with a lot of people." And it doesn't have to mean what it

   means. You know what I mean? Even if you are a kind of person who wants to limit your sexuality to one person, which is fine if that's something that you want to do with somebody, there's so much

   touch that can be available between people and it's all so nourishing and it's all just feeding us so much. And I

   I really do wish that people understood how much they need touch and how much contact comfort is literally everything for our species.

   Similarly to you, woman touching me, I was raised, my mom would say that's lesbian. if I was too close to a friend, oh that's lesbian, that's less because

   Persians definitely have a homophobic culture. And so anytime a girl would like hug me, I would like kind of put my

   arm straight and like wait for it to be done.

   And my friends would tell me, they're like, "Oh, you're so not a touchy person." I'm like, "I don't know. I just I just don't like it." But then the only time I would be touched at all is if I was in a relationship.

   And so if I wasn't in a relationship, I was completely touchdeprived. And after my divorce, I was, you know, in the celibacy for a long time. Just I was so

   not ready to bring in more potential heartbreak into my life. But maybe like a year and a half went by that I really

Chapter Teal's Pain Vault and How It Works

   wasn't touched, right? Except maybe like massage, like a massage therapist. And I realized so much of my pain and my grief

   was probably like hormonal and biochemical just because my body has gone through a huge withdrawal of touch.

   Yes. Absolutely. That makes my heart go.

   And now for our birthdays. Um, so for our birthdays, sometimes we will do something that a woman lie, the woman whose birthday it is will lie in the

   middle and we'll all place our hands on her, put rose petals on her, stroke her hair, touch her arm, and say beautiful

   words to her like just things that we see in her, angel, queen, warrior, s goddess.

   And to just receive that and it's so ner feels like baby angels around you all the time. And it's like we women need that. We need each other. We can give

   each other this type of like genuine heart-c centered love that doesn't come with the but you might leave thing that can often happen in relationships.

  secondExactly. Yeah.

   So right now you created a pain vault which is a series of meditations based on these really creative ways like working with fire energy of releasing pain. Can you tell us more about this?

   Yeah. Well, the basically this pain vault is two things. First thing is it's

   a group of guided experiences. You can compare them to guided meditations, but I'm I'm calling them like guided experiences because they're very very

   specific experiences with your pain and different many different ones. And I've designed eight novel ones specifically

   for the time that we're in right now where people are with their pain. Two of them I have already designed in years past that are all stars that I'm bringing into this vault because they're

   important ones. So each one of these experiences does different things. So for example, I'll just give you like a

   quick example. One of them would be an exercise where you're led in the direction of your pain so as to

   understand the messages that your pain has for you. So you can symbolically transform your pain into something. Now by doing that whole symbolic process, you're understanding exactly what your

   pain is needing. So that then that gives you information about what to do about it out in your day-to-day life. Um,

   another one would be something like a pain purge where I've got you in a very specific position which is not usual for

   um for meditations and in that position you are literally siphoning all of the pain out of your body and purging it out.

   Okay, so this is just two examples of So each one of these is basically a different experience to have with your pain and it's whatever pain you're going through. So it doesn't matter whether

   it's physical pain, emotional pain, existential pain, mental pain. It basically addresses every type of pain.

   And on top of that, the second part of this vault is a compilation of information of what I've taught about pain. So what is pain? Why is it here?

Chapter How to Find Teal and Access the Pain Vault

 minutesWhat do we actually do about it? That type of stuff. So, for those of you that are really mental about things and like to have a lot of understanding, it's that. But the reason that I I decided to

   do these experiences is because we're in a time where a lot of people are in a lot of pain, but quite frankly, we're all so burned out that I'm noticing that

   people are really lacking the capacity to make these big deal changes. You know, when you're in this level of pain, it's like, oh, and this is all the stuff

   you need to do to get out of pain. It's like they just it's not manageable. I'm noticing people's capacity to like really put effort into things just go

   like this. And so I wanted to create some kind of a a way to reach people where they're at with that and to be

   like, "Okay, you don't you could be lying in a high hospital bed. You could be fresh out of a breakup to the point where you don't even know if you can put on pants. Like all you need to do is

   just put this on and just follow me through it. That's it.

   That's why I decided to do it this way versus like some complicated process or something else that I might be inclined to do normally, you know. Yeah. So, I'm

   hoping I loved it. I did the fire one last night with my friend of feeling the fire and letting the the embers get like the

   flames get louder and releasing it. And it's just such a beautiful way of using the elements to support us, you know,

   and visually imagining the fire just burn away this thing. And you said something in it of like what are you ready to be done with and I feel it's

   just this beautiful release of sometimes we can wallow in the pain like feel the pain but also don't get addicted sometimes to that you know that scab that we keep it like we just want to feel alive so we just keep going there especially when you're I don't know maybe like bored on an airplane you're going I'm going to go through all of our pictures together whatever the thing is and to just be like okay I'm going to feel the pain ceremonially like sit with

   it through these meditations and then I'm going to really let it let it heal, right? And I feel like that's such a beautiful nuance to hold.

   I'm glad you like that one. That that forest fire meditation is my personal favorite one. [laughter] I love that one.

   Sometimes when I get into enough pain, I'm like real kamicazi. Like just give me something that's gonna just go through it. Yeah, I love that one.

   Exactly. Clearly that's the one I wanted too. So people can find the pain vault and all of the information we listed in the show notes. Well, thank you Teal so

   much for being back on. It's always a pleasure. I always love I'm always asking my personal questions and thank you for you know giving so much guidance

   both from the collective of what we're all experiencing and these really futuristic solutions that I feel yes we

   can say okay do this do that but I do feel you're completely correct living in community having these unique types of

   relationship and along the way of course we're not going to go straight into that but I feel a lot I mean you're already living this way a lot of us in this

   lifetime we do want to live in in this more community oriented way. And so, yeah, I look forward to continue to learn from you of how you've been able

   to create this harmoniously for so long because I do feel shifting the way our society is set up is at the root of so much of this pain that we're in.

   Maybe we should have another show about community living. That would be a fun one, wouldn't it? I think so.

   Let's do it. And then we'll do our other one about successful women dating. Okay. [laughter] Okay.

   But but the men will all be in the community, so it'll be really easy.

   [laughter]

   Great. Well, thank you again so much for being on. We'll have her her vault listed in the show notes. And thank you for tuning in. Thank you.

   Trust your intuition. [music] Trust your inner wisdom. Trust your inner guidance. Close your eyes and listen.

   So trust your intuition. Trust your inner wisdom. Trust your inner guidance. Close your eyes and listen.