speaker-0 (00:00.696)
So welcome in to the He Wants, She Wants Marriage podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about the three ways you can get your partner to support all of your dreams moving forward.

When was the last time you and your partner lost track of time talking about dreams and adventures that you both have lined up individually or together? Has your marriage become boringly predictable in the day-to-day running of things?

speaker-0 (00:33.378)
Do you have a lengthening list of unacted upon projects growing in the background of your married life as the years go by? And have you had an experience and a struggle in getting your partner to support you in going for your dreams?

This is such a key topic that we're going to be talking about today. Going at dreams in marriage.

Yes, yeah, it's what fuels the marriage ultimately, like the power of the dream. So when we don't feel supported in that and we don't feel that we can do it, it is going to be a big struggle. that's that is a really big topic.

Yeah, I think before we jump into the real take of it, it's important to define what we're meaning about dreams, because there can be this thing of dreams. Well, they must be big. We're in a society where dreams must be big. A financial dream must be a million plus. You know, it has to be big and very often it has to be external. So.

When we're talking about dreams in this episode, we're really talking about dreams are anything your heart wants to manifest. That can be tiny. And it can be massive. can be a dream, can be something that can take five or 10 years to manifest. But it can also be I want to manifest some spare time for myself to do to write some poetry.

speaker-1 (01:47.778)
Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (02:07.426)
this weekend, I haven't done it in 20 years. I'd love to manifest that. So it's just to get that working definition for you guys when you're listening in. It's there's the whole spectrum. The dream is anything you want to manifest that your heart feels is meaningful.

Yes, yeah.

speaker-0 (02:27.286)
We haven't had a very harmonious relationship with nurturing each other's dreams. hasn't always been how it has been in, well, in recent years has been improving indefinitely in the last six months, eight months. It has sort of went to the next level of supporting that. How has that human experience been for you?

you

speaker-1 (02:48.558)
No, it was literally like two elephants stomping on each other's dreams, I think would describe it. Our patterns and woundings and lack of awareness and all of that made it so that we actually unintentionally most of the times and sometimes maybe a little bit intentionally too, but we ended up

really put in a big stop on any dream that we had to the point that there was no dreaming at all. I have memories of the feeling of the same shit different day. Like we're just going through the motions and it's a good life. Like it's not terrible, but there's no inspiration.

There's no excitement ever. And there's no safety. There was obviously, those were my thoughts back then, but there was no safety in ever expressing because an expressed desire would trigger too much. And then also it had gotten into a cycle that

Even if it was a desire that probably maybe would not even have triggered the other person, but we had just gotten so used to it that we weren't even connecting with our own desires. Cause that's the thing like, I don't know for those of you listening in, but I had stopped dreaming altogether. wasn't even that I was conscious of that I had stopped. I was just going through the motions and I knew I had dreams when I was younger.

And also I wasn't even looking anymore for, you know, yes, I dreamt for deeper connection. I wanted to have dates. wanted it, but like, you know, you don't even go there anymore. So that's, that's how it had gotten. A few years ago, I, have progressively actually been building it back in a step by step and we're going to give you the steps, but, but yeah, that was, that was my experience for sure.

speaker-0 (05:06.68)
Yeah. One thing that's coming up for me is. When I rewind the tape in my mind to pre marriage, I'm coming out from university and I believe like most people I've spoken with on this precise thing, a lot of them they'll light up or they'll switch off. There's almost like, yeah, I get that. there's an energize relating with the universal nature of it. But there's also a grief that comes with it, which is the younger

days adult. You're just coming out. I was coming out of childhood. Full of dreams and aspirations, full of opinions about what my mom did, my dad did. I was going to do it differently. I was going to take on the world and I had this mind full of the wonder of life. What I was going to go at. Big projects. I was going to travel. I was going to do the Appalachian Trail. I was going to do and had all of this wonder and joy.

And then meeting yourself and getting into family life. We had, we had our beautiful, our first born quite early on. We moved. It's because of not having a toolbox of how to navigate that emotionally. I ultimately was at my limit just in the day to day, keeping this together in any way, shape or form. I just didn't have the capacity.

left to do all the big thinking, the creative thinking, you know, to the whole space for the inspiration. And I blinked and like 10 years went by and I blinked and five years and it happens. know nearly every single guy I have spoken to around the world. That point hits them, hits them really, really hard. What was your experience when you look back and coming to now?

Well, my dreams had been already pretty much shattered by my beautiful family. I came out of college with a lot of dreams and, God, a lot of opinions on how I was going to do things. if you have followed in any way my previous podcast, Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, you'll know that I've had quite the experiences with my

speaker-1 (07:35.446)
mother stopping my dreams at that stage. So at that point, I think what I was left with was like I dreamt of a relationship that was safe and fulfilling. And a family and children. But already in that, anything that was for me had been had been left behind. and

I remember at beginning with you saying it to you, have like this tiny little, I feel like I have this tiny little spark left in me of like, of dream force, of life force, I don't know. And I'm trying to protect it, but it's like tiny and I don't have the energy to even fuel it. And then from there you go into family and different things. And of course, energy gets focused. But like, there's been an evolution, of course, in the dreams as like I, when I was younger, I wanted to go.

and become a marine biologist in Alaska, stood in Wales. I don't dream of that anymore, but there's a reconnection with even just the dream of having the time to sit down to watch a documentary on Wales. That's how it goes. It's like as as younger people, we have like these massive dreams, as you said, our dreams are characteristically external and big and whatever. And there's nothing wrong with that.

And it's okay that there is an evolution in life, I feel like things can change. But what we lose in the way we relate in marriage and the cycle that can happen is that we actually end up losing, I personally ended up losing the capacity to even go, I want to sit down and just flick through a book that has Wales pictures on it. You know, that's pocket of time just to myself to do that.

There's a classic research that's quite famous that's coming up for me and it's not a very nice research. It's one of the classic ones, but it's the research that they did to study helplessness, conditioned helplessness, where they have these dogs and one set of dogs, they're in an environment in a cage and there's a metal floor that they're lying on.

speaker-0 (10:00.61)
there is an electric cable attached to it so it can give not a deadly one but a distinctly uncomfortable electric shock. One set of dogs have a door open so they can escape. Another set of dogs can't escape. So they do that a few times and the dogs that can escape up the gate and they go out. So the dogs that can escape have no trauma. They don't actually learn their behavior isn't impacted. They're able to escape.

The dogs that can't escape, that learn it's no use. They get the electric shock, they can't go anywhere. They learn to just lie there. Now where it gets really interesting is the researchers then open the door for the dogs that have already been conditioned that this is, it's hopeless. They're helpless in this situation. There's nothing we can do in our own power to change our circumstances. We've just got to suffer it. They give the electric shock.

And the dogs remain. The door is open, but the dogs are there. They have learned. And this is part of the positive psychology movement where they've looked at that and went, wow, this is happening on mass. We learn in childhood, we're helpless. You can't act on it. You know, I wanted to be X, Y and Z. And my mom said I needed to be these other things. I wanted to go travel. They said, no, you should settle down and get a job. And, know, we have all of these beliefs and

In this profoundly sick society, a lot of the time we've learned dreaming big and doing something that's cool and that lines up with your heart and soul. Well, that's just not welcome in this society. So there's a lot of childhood and then that period of maybe, maybe I could do this because we're sort of breaking away from the family of origin. There's that in between college time or, in between when you start living by yourself.

But then we go in to marriage and I feel that it's that old conditioning comes where we're in a family environment again and we end up reassuming the same persona that got us through the craziness, the emotional craziness of childhood. end up sort of, we have a freedom in between, but we end up reassuming that persona and all the coping mechanisms that got us through childhood.

speaker-0 (12:28.728)
We now reassume them. I know that was definitely the case with myself and yourself, because in the beginning I had a sense of hope and I had a sense of possibility for quite some time, but I look back and go, yeah. And then I became the shadow of my dad. Then I became, wow. was like, I became the Mark of five, six, seven years of age at the table.

at Forgany, my family of origin home place, I became that guy again. And that guy did not feel he could bring his truth to the table. And me as a husband, I didn't feel I could bring my truth to the table. And what's the most sacred part of our truth? It's like our dreams, our aspirations, the, what we could do, the sense of infinite possibility.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's a really important point because when you actually touch on that awful experiment, but that showed the how that repeated trauma, is trauma is ultimately the, you know, one of the aspects of a traumatic experience is that it blocks the movement. You cannot act and you cannot escape. You can't fight. can't fly. You have to just.

take what's happening and that causes the trauma. So what we end up caught in and we end up blaming the other person in marriage and we're going to go into that in a minute, but it's actually mostly coming from patterns that we've learned very early on in our childhood. And then we may have these pockets, as you said, or when you come out of college and you're like, you know,

Thanks.

speaker-1 (14:16.234)
independent or when you're early on in a relationship and it's like all, you know, honeymoon period, everything is amazing and all of that, we can have these like glimpses of, maybe we can do it differently. But once we get in the long term, once we get into what is the family setting again, like a home setting again, we, as you said, we end up going back into those roles and the parts that I want us to protect us from.

that pain we felt in childhood, they just end up acting and creating these dynamics that ultimately drive a wedge. That's what happens. They drive a wedge in marriage. So what we have observed is that your dreams, your desires, your dreams, the things that you want to achieve, you want to manifest from your heart drive a wedge in your relationship instead of bringing connection.

And there's two ways that they can drive a wedge that we've noticed.

I'll go with the first. You go with the second. We'll keep in flow like that. The first and definitely I resonate with the first one for so long. had that Mr. Nice guy, know. My inner world reality, my wishes, my wants, my desires, they're not so important. It's the nice guy. It's the in this profoundly sick society not having my dad around. If he was at work, my mom was at home and my first

You go.

speaker-0 (15:48.994)
what, four or five, six years in school is predominantly relating with female teachers. I learned to please the feminine and nothing could be more untrustworthy to to your wife. think you were saying there this morning, this this person talking about you're marrying sons. You're not marrying an initiated man. You don't have a husband, you have a son. And it's an accurate depiction of what has happened in this.

society to men. I definitely came into marriage with that and dream sedation. That's the first pattern. There's two ways. And the first way is dream sedation where you repress or suppress your inner world desires. There's the pain of feeling that it's just not possible. Again, childhood, it's just not possible. No, you shouldn't be doing that. No, you're too much or you're too little or you won't be able. What do you even think in going at that? So

We have an environment that plants these beliefs in us and dream sedation, it ends up just, I was making excuses.

making excuses, putting it off the dream sedation was all someday. The infamous all someday. You know, I will. I want I would love and looking at my environment and just seeing. Yeah, well, I can't do it now. There was always a reason there was one guy in men's work. My first mentor in men's work will always stick with me. I believe it was the very first meeting that I joined and he brought to my awareness the

the idea of minimising and normalising. It's like you'll never you'll never run out of the surprise element of when you're talking with guys how far they can minimise and normalise some part of the reality that they don't like, but they can minimise and normalise it. And that was me. The dream sedation for me was minimising and normalising.

speaker-0 (17:55.424)
not getting what I wanted, not even speaking. The nasty part of that dream sedation, I'd have all of these ways of trying to sort of spiritually bypass the confrontation internally going, you're not getting what you want. What are you going to do about it? The first of that was resentment. know, nice guy to you. I'm doing the parenting thing. I'm being a good dad. I'm earning money.

I'm doing all of these sacred boxes that the world can see. But internally, I was like, you're holding me back. You didn't support me in that one. And it was an internal commentary. So that was definitely running in the background. And then the other one is vicariously living my dreams vicariously through others. And I've seen this with hundreds of guys when I'm talking about this. They're very, they're

Mm.

speaker-0 (18:53.142)
or universal patterns in this dream sedation thing were vicariously you live it through others. One of the most destructive ones, but it's it's almost a cliche at this point, is living your dreams through your kids. You wanted to be a doctor. You wanted to play rugby when you were younger, but you couldn't. But you live it through your kids.

you didn't feel you got the support and the encouragement. So you're going to support, you're going to encourage, you're going to make sure that they get to do everything that you didn't do and hey, you'll find that.

You can have, I've been observing, I know we've spoken about this. Some kids don't get to breed to go from school to two and three different extracurricular activities. And they're doing that three and four and five evenings a week. And then at the weekends, they're doing high level sports and multiple sports and they're, just being bombarded. And it's not that extracurricular is wrong per se, but it's where it's coming from as a parent. And the other one vicariously is, Hey, I'd be

looking at other guys and inspired by them. But deep down, it was hard for me. But if I could look at a sports team that was succeeding or somebody that was doing something I wanted to do, I was following these guys and obsessing about them. But it was it was that living out. I'm having a shared experience with you, but I'm not doing it. And I camped out there for many years in marriage and it just wasn't safe.

So that was dream sedation.

speaker-1 (20:37.352)
And just before I go into the next one, very briefly, what that does, and I had my version of it, sedating and repressing, and then of course, resentment that comes up in different ways. Like mine was a little explosive at times, but it's...

That fuels that pattern because if one has a lot of resentment, then the other one can't actually say, but I would like to do this thing because there's this, in that moment, the resentment comes out and it can come out really softly. can be like little jobs, like what would you waste your time doing that for? Or, don't know.

don't you have anything better to do or that's a ridiculous thing to do or they can be like a little joke that could be not was if there wasn't that load of resentment and kind of pattern, but it can, I've, I've had experiences of wanting to do maybe like, like DIY, I like doing artistic things, but I've had the pattern of, course that was already blocked in my own family. So I came with that pattern already, but in that.

There was this feeling of one comment from you would put it down, but then you weren't allowed to do things. then there was like, it was just, it just to say that that creates this cycle. So from one little thing that can be very knock was it can actually do this dance that keeps doing what I said at the beginning, two elephants stomping on each other dreams effectively. That's what happens. But,

So the second wedge is the dare and destroy.

speaker-0 (22:28.691)
I love your term. You came up with that, Terri, as Darren Destro-

I came up with it because I'm a champion at it. That's what I've done. like if the sedation is more like, and we have a bit of both, but that's like the predominant pattern you've recognized in yourself there in destroy is like, yeah, I do that. I just go here. I want to do this thing. I buy eight horses and then I sabotage internally everything that.

I could have done with those eight horses because I don't think I deserve to actually have the thing because then otherwise you'll resent me and here the cycle continues. But ultimately what we do with this dare destroy thing, it's like we end up caught in what you call the BS black hole, the blame and shame. And so you may have a dream or a project or an idea and ultimately you don't believe you're gonna

make it or there's some parts of you doesn't believe you deserve it and all of that. And so what happens is like, we start, you start with the project in a way that's destined for failure already, because you haven't prepared, you haven't done any of that. You just go with that impulse and it has to be, you have to be super opinionated to defend it so no one can attack it. You have to be super fast and do it like...

That's why there you just go and jump, but there's no preparation. There's no openness to any teamwork. There's, is none of that because all of that is not safe. and so it becomes a mishmash of he should get me, he should support me. She should stop criticizing the world should get me or like the whole blaming of others of the world is not ready for me.

speaker-1 (24:30.126)
My idea was so great, but there's all these external factors that are just not in my control that I can't do anything about it or you name it. Whatever is your excuse in that. I should have known better. And then we start shaming ourselves with this microphone. I keep hitting it. I'm like an Italian moving with a microphone in front of me. This is restrictive.

So yeah, so that's there and destroy whatever version you have. And I've done it with the horses. I've done it with some business ideas that I've had. There was like this moment of being energized. I'm going to do it. You don't count. Like at this point is not teamwork. It's not anything. It's like, should support me no matter what. And I'm just going to go at it no matter what. And then some pattern of self-sabotage come in and destroy the whole thing.

And the cycle continues.

What's coming to me is there are those two patterns of wounding, these messages that we take on and we all have different forms of both. But it's this feeling of I'm too much as a human being and I'm not enough. I'm just spontaneously making the link. The dream sedation is I'm not enough. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough.

I don't I don't deserve to bring forward my dream into the world. So I'm not enough and I'm I'm too much. There's more energy in that. It's an outlandish. There's an anger. I'm too much. We go to prove the dominant pattern. it's like I'm I'm too much. It will be in your face. There'll be an in your face sort of I'm out to prove, you know, but like really what

speaker-0 (26:27.298)
we're trying to prove is I'm too much and here's the world telling me reaffirming one more time that what I've done and it's too much. It's too much for my partner. They just they can't support me. But it's done in a way that subconsciously that's what you're trying to evoke. Hence the self-sabotage. We end up setting up the perfect system to get the results that we're getting. And that is one of the most uncomfortable. It's when it was a

coach that I was following, Rich Litvin, when he had that in an email, that was like a punch in my gut. It's like, you're setting up the perfect system to get the results that you're getting. So it's like really to invite people in at home and like we've been doing this and it's really intense. It's really intense to go, oh, you're not getting what you want? Well, you've set the perfect system up to get the results that you want. So let's talk about the system and

It is.

speaker-0 (27:26.158)
It's like, oh, no, I just want to blame you. I just want to blame the world. I just want to blame like and I feel that there's a part of me that it's really just it's a five, six year old that is just feeling entitled. I just deserve more. And you should like the world should really just there's a fighting, angry, resentful part of me. And it's like, God, like, don't you tell me about systems, but.

speaker-0 (27:58.104)
We're adults. And we need to parent that part. But it's leading to the what we're practicing now and what we really want people to to get is there is a system, there is a systematic three step way at bringing your dreams into the marriage conversation in a way that you will actually get what you want.

Yeah.

speaker-1 (28:26.689)
Mm-hmm. Because happy marriages fuel big dreams with small steps. We go back to the third agreement, yeah? Big dreams, small steps. We spoke to Dash in the second or third episode. God, I'm getting confused. We only have three or four episodes and I'm already getting confused. But yeah, we spoke to the three agreements and big dreams, small steps. So a happy marriage is fueled, fuels big dreams with small steps.

Yeah.

speaker-1 (28:55.992)
there's the three steps that we want to give you today so that you can have your partner supporting your dreams and you can support their dreams in return.

Mmm step number one

It's clarity.

clarity and clarity what we have come to look at clarity like imagine imagine you've got a spark of a fire clarity can be something that you know we just have an idea it's just in the last few moments an idea came through that's the spark but it can also be a spark like you with the whales that idea well there's a spark that has existed

30, 34, five, six years, whatever it's like. So the spark can be just after coming out or a long term spark, but it's a spark. It's not yet the blazing bushfire and a blazing bushfire. know, the issue with a blazing bushfire is the more you try to put it out, the wilder it grows. That's where you want to get with your dream. That's in full manifested reality. But in the beginning, it's a spark.

speaker-1 (29:49.358)
Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (30:08.576)
it's exquisitely vulnerable. And that's where without the system, most sparks remain a spark. And we don't set the system as we've said with the two wedges, how dreams create a wedge. So clarifying, I know that was a challenge for me. Actually just going, okay, Mark, you've got these thoughts that show up every now and then.

Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (30:39.118)
But what does success looks like? What does the end point look like? What do you want to manifest? If you're to go and bring this spark or these multiple sparks into conversation in marriage at the table and go, hey, that was one humbling point. I found it hard, damn hard to go, I don't know how to define exactly what I want. So that

That is an essential first part of the jigsaw. And literally, I've like the jigsaw, imagine trying to build a jigsaw without having the box where you have the image. You go mad insane. Like you can't actually put all the pieces of the jigsaw together unless you have clarity of what the end project looks like. So that's step number one.

I'm gonna add something to that. not because what you're saying is not true, but just a different element to it that for me was really important. That spark. You were talking about the whales, for example, and like just a dream that's been abandoned for centuries at this point. And then the other day, my daughters showed me a piece of a documentary that had whales in it. And it was like I was

looking at them and I was like, whoa, there's such a depth of emotion that comes up. Like I was getting tears. And this part came that was like, I actually want to draw them. So it's a completely new thing. I've never actually had this before. I wanted to go see them. I want to go do all these things, but I never had this idea ever. And I had I still have no idea of the end result. So

It's important because sometimes, and this can be two different ways to look at the same thing. So clarity does spark. It can just be the clarity of there's this thing that lights me up.

speaker-1 (32:46.73)
And I don't actually know where this is going to go. I don't have here like, don't know, laid out a business plan. I'm going to become a specialized artist in drawing whales or I'm going to what, take a class or I don't have that. All I got to was that spark. But before in our relationship, I would say that to you and it would either dismiss, mostly be dismissed actually. I think that was one of the worst.

of our patterns, you were never actually attacking it outlandishly or ridiculing it, none of that. But there was like a sort of a whatever. Like I was coming with this like spark that's like a precious thing. It's like I found a jewel in a pile of muck and it would be received as a

Huh?

Yeah, whatever. And for all the different mechanisms that we spoke about before, that's okay. There was the lack of awareness and all of that. But so sometimes you may not have the clarity of the full journey. And I just wanted to say that in case there's an understanding that is like, clarity means you need to...

Hmm

speaker-1 (34:04.184)
have laid all the steps out before you start communicating with your partner. You have to have crazy clarity because actually that was my coping strategy and that brought to the dare and destroy. I had to have the whole thing so clear so that you had no space to argue with me. And that was actually part of the wedge. So it may be that in your clarity is like, I want to have the full picture and I want to have the full jigsaw box.

My spark sometimes is just I found a random piece of a jigsaw on the floor and I just want to keep searching until I find the next and that's actually my spark so it can work both ways.

It's really cool. I really love that distinction and it is so important. What's coming up for me is like clarity of the body story. We're going to be bringing in the head story versus body story. It's clarity of the body story because I know with I've been playing the guitar, learning to the guitar the last number of months. And that's that's one of my dreams that you've been

in full support of like, I couldn't have more encouragement from you. And yet all I have off that, well, definitely in the beginning was clarity of feeling. don't know what I want to do with it. I just any time, you know, that was the conversation with you every single time from not well tuned busker on the street to like to top end guitarist online live, I get mesmerized.

feel good. I get sucked into that moment. So I don't know where I want to bring it. So head story, I don't have clarity. Definitely in the beginning, I just knew I had clarity on the feeling. And that's, I believe, the distinction you're bringing in and so key for people is, again, the profoundly sick society goes, you have to have clarity. Sort of the version I brought. And that can be cool. And maybe that can come, but

speaker-0 (36:07.224)
The clarity, the head story clarity, I believe it will come with stages two and three. Your point is really at the money of it because early in the beginning of most dreams, all we have to rely upon is the body story, is the clarity of, I don't know where this is going, but I know it's important to me. So we go to step number two, which is courage.

Mm-hmm.

speaker-1 (36:34.124)
Yeah.

What are we saying on courage?

Well, that's such a, cause the spark is such a vulnerable place to be. And so when you go, that's a, that's a, that's an internal moment. You can have your spark all by yourself in a room or on a walk or, know, that's you with your own internal moment. And there's plenty of vulnerability in that cause there's parts, there's a whole internal family in there. But when we're talking to marriage, then you're.

You're needing courage to bring that to your partner. You know, I had to come out to you with like, I actually did my first three drawings by myself in the city room. I hadn't even said that to anyone. And then I came out to you. That's the courage. It's like, look what I've done. And it's like, please don't kill this for me. This is really vulnerable.

And then there's the courage of the person that receives your dream because it may trigger stuff in the other person. So it's like the two people bringing courage and we go to the two agreements, the other two agreements that we brought.

speaker-0 (37:46.414)
Yeah, it's playing poorly well and port in the storm. Let's run through that example, actually, of coming in because it was in this room that you showed me those drawings. And I know I have had that classic thing of just dismissing indifference or a sort of fake interest. Oh, it's not nice, but no, my smile would not reach my eyes. There wasn't a sincerity with it.

So it's mixing those two agreements has made such a difference for myself and boy, boy, like what I'm experiencing with you, embodying those principles, those agreements. I just have more and more dreams coming true. There's more and more that I want to do. Like it's just this natural heart and soul expansiveness is coming through. It's coming through me. Like the last six months with you, it's funny. And I think a lot of people want to get to this point.

But we think of it retrospectively with sentimentality. the good old days. And we define it as like when we didn't have kids, when we didn't have full-time jobs, when we had a little small home that didn't have big repayments, you know, we look back. I've been experiencing that with you in recent months where early days together, first six months together. Boy, we couldn't stop talking.

We were talking for like three and four and five hours at a time and it was just like we just couldn't get enough of each other. I'm experiencing that with you again the last five, six months and these agreements are really helping to set the environment, set the stage for that to come true. Playing poorly while

speaker-0 (39:28.11)
The playing poorly well for me, I suppose when I look at how you brought that to me. You brought that embodying playing poorly well because previously, and I had my version of it and everybody listening in will have their own version where, you you bring the idea you would have brought the idea, but you were many times you were already angsty. You weren't owning

Mm.

that there's fears, that there's inhibitions, that there are assumptions in you that I'm not going to. So you would have brought it in in a bodily hardness. Your voice would have been hard. Everything about you. So I know times gone by. Yes, I had my own woundedness. But there was this weirdness going. You'd be showing me something, but every message your body was transmitting was you're in danger.

It was triggering me to get uptight and then I would have and at the time I had unchecked fear. I was fearing God, this is loaded. This is like, what am I meant to say? I'm like in this moment of this is so highly loaded that is times gone by. When you brought the art of the whales, you came in and you played poorly well.

You told me it's like, you know, you were owning it. You were really soft. You had lovely, soft eyes. You were like, Mark, I've just done this art. Like, I'd love you to see it. Would like, you know, do you want to see it? And I feel you actually paraphrase is like, hey, this has been a long while coming. So.

speaker-1 (41:20.168)
Mm-hmm.

You know, lightly. There was a full ownership. You were playing poorly. Well, you weren't projecting judgments. You weren't going with old, you know, confirmation bias of, well, of course he's going to say it's crap. Of course he's just going to ignore it. You weren't, you didn't go with any of that. So you one side, you were playing poorly. Well, my nervous system was completely relaxed. I was coming into the room going, I'm actually looking forward to seeing this. had a, you set it up that I had a full curiosity.

At that point, my practice is I'm aware. Hey, be a port in the storm.

Mm-hmm.

And the port and the storm to remind people if it's your first time listening in or it's a reminder, it's the port and the storm is such a powerful agreement because the port never goes against the captain that comes into the port and goes, Hey, I was, you know, a captain is always going on a dream. He or she is going from point A to point B. They're dreaming of going to that destination. The port never looks at the captain of the ship and goes, you dumbass.

speaker-0 (42:28.844)
What the hell were you going to that place at this time and this weather and this time of the year? Are you stupid? No. The port never turns against the captain. Ever.

Mm-hmm.

That's where it was completely different from me. You were playing pretty well. I was feeling safe. I had this natural curiosity and I had an awareness going in. Mark Boyle, you're porting the storm. I believe I spoke that to you. It's like, Hey, I'm, I'm your port in this storm. Wherever this, this is beautiful by the way. This is amazing. I made sure that you were completely safe, that there was an absolute fortress.

Mm-hmm.

speaker-1 (43:02.83)
Mm.

speaker-0 (43:13.358)
held around you. So wherever that spark wants to go, whether it's one portion of drawings, even though you've done a couple more in recent days, whether it becomes a 10, 20, 30 year obsession and you go, you know, on boats following the whales in Scandinavia. And we've thought about that. Or if it's a few afternoons simply drawing whales, I'll protect that. I'll be your port in the storm. For me, that just has been a revelation.

having both of those dynamics coming in together.

Yeah, and that's courage. That's what courage is about. There's a courage in bringing the idea, that vulnerable spark to the other, the courage of taking responsibility for your own nervous system as you're doing that, for your own patterns, owning your need, and the courage of the other person to actually be the port in the storm and receive and take responsibility for their own nervous system and triggers and whatnot.

That's courage. It's like you're going from the internal spark to actually here, you're bringing it into the relationship, you're bringing it to the other person. And from there, we go into step three.

Mmm. Wanna crack on with step three? Cooperation.

speaker-1 (44:29.784)
cooperation. Yes, it's wonderful. It's like we spoke about recognition and feedback and that's really important part of cooperation. So there is a recognition of, those drawings are beautiful and there is the vulnerability that it took you for bringing those drawings and there was recognition comes both ways because again, it's like, thank you for receiving it. actually

Recognize that you were super safe in the process for me and all of that now if I had to go with the dare and destroy Wedge at this point I go That's it. I am Tomorrow, I'm leaving for Norway. I'm going on this trip. I've booked it actually I booked it online and Whatever it's like or I Could have that idea

but I could sedate and keep it hidden. Cause that's too much. You know, I've done the little drawing, but now the next step, that's too much. when we're bringing in cooperation, we're bringing in the welcoming of teamwork and with recognition feedback. And so it's like, you know, again, that would be a really cool thing for me to do to just go on a trip and actually see them in real life. There's places to do that. Well, that requires.

Hmm.

speaker-1 (45:58.36)
cooperation requires teamwork. When is that going to be possible? What are the finances? Is that like, are you going to go on your own? Are we going to go together? are the girls? There is so much and here is where there are big dreams and tiny steps. With the cooperation together, you can support each other in taking one step at a time.

Yeah, it's really the immature kid inside of ourselves. Because as a kid, I want to go to... Well, all you believe you need to do is a kid and hey, it's appropriate as a kid, you don't...

have the whole complexity of there's a full ecosystem around you. They're in our home. are four individuals and hey, actually there's more, there's 25 when you think of animals and all of the needs, the wishes, the wants, responsibilities, what keeps a whole family going on a day to day. When you bring a dream, a new idea and you go, Hey, I want to insert this new idea into this ecosystem. It can't

It does change. By definition, it changes everything to some degree. It will take a block of time. It will take resources. It will take time. It will take finances. It will take conversations. It will take maybe the literal helping out, the manual helping out of other people. It changes everything to a small degree or, hey, I'm changing my job. I've done that. You know, it's like I'm said to you, hey, I feel I'd be the freest man alive.

If I stopped physio in the morning, that was the dare and destroy. There was a ton of self sabotage in that. I didn't prepare myself and ourselves financially. I didn't do a whole heap of stuff. I listened to Tony Robbins said, burn the ships. I'm like, I don't think that's a really good idea, Tony. You know, not as a young family man. So definitely recognizing and having the humility to go.

speaker-0 (48:02.2)
This is sacred.

but I'm living in a beautiful family ecosystem. I'm finding the mature part of you, which can hold space for the maverick part of you. Mature and maverick, like where you can go wild and it can seem outlandish and it can seem crazy and hey, the wilder, the crazier, the better. Hey, the more it lights you up. Yeah. But to have the ground and maturity to go, there's an ecosystem and other people are living in that.

Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (48:35.832)
So I need this ecosystem needs us to recognize the sacredness of the spark for the individual involved. But there's also that person to recognize, well, this is going to change things. I'm going to. It's devotional dependency. I'm depending on your support. I'm depending on us as a unit, as an ecosystem of people coming together to actually have this come into full fruition, but to be successful for me to be fulfilled.

To have what I want but everybody to be happy along the way on this journey. That definitely takes the recognition. The other part is the feedback.

Mm-hmm.

That's the part where the wounded child part of us does not want feedback.

No, and it makes sense too, because if you haven't done step one and two, if there hasn't been those agreements of playing poorly well, being the port in the storm, hasn't been that safety being created by all of that, you don't want feedback. You're going to be very resistant and close up to feedback. Actually, I know my mother would kill every idea before I even managed to speak the second sentence.

speaker-1 (49:53.738)
And I had to be like, I don't know, a politician. I had to be so convinced and I had to have done so much research on everything. And still she would manage to give me a feedback that would kill it no matter what. I have so many things that I wanted to do as a young person that were cut off, like at the root before they could even become anything.

So like in that, within that context and none of that owned and none of that sacred and that spark not held as sacred and all of that, you come to me and give me feedback. mean, seriously, as our daughter says, heads will roll. Like that's going to happen. It's fair enough. But when those two steps are done first and there is, there are the agreements in place and there is the balancing of recognition and feedback.

and a conscious knowing that the third step is cooperation and cooperation. Part of corporations are also complex, intense conversations. That's also cooperation. There's going to be like things that we've had examples of things that trigger me or trigger you. And we just have to keep going until we've built enough of that presence and protection so that we can move into.

the progress, we build enough that safety so that we can move into the phase of actually even going for the dream. And that's really important.

The one point for people to take home is happy marriages fuel big dreams with small steps. These three steps, they're like phases. And it's not that you do one and then you do the next and you do the other. They're actually interchangeable. One conversation, you're going to you're going to swim in and around these.

speaker-0 (51:54.954)
The key thing I know for myself and it's the maturing part of me and it's to invite people into that. Hence, we've that third agreement is big dreams, small steps. You're not trying to get to success in one conversation with your partner. You're not trying to get to full, perfect clarity of where that spark wants to take you in one conversation. It could be a

It could literally be 1000 conversations of unfolding. For some dreams, it could be forevermore. In some little or big way, every day that dream could be spoken to or acted on for some of them. Others could be something that you want to manifest this weekend.

but it's to take the wounded child that just has so much angst up resentment and confirmation biases that this isn't going to work and thus the fear rejection and the fear of I won't be an offer and the fear of I will be too much and just go take a chill pill. I don't have to, I don't have to get the full cooperation in the first conversation, but you have the courage to enter that conversation. That's, that's a step. You have the clarity in your body.

Okay, this feels good. I'm gonna enter that conversation. I'm gonna play poorly well. You hope, it's not absolutely necessary, but you hope that your partner will meet you there, but you'll have the courage to bring it. And it's infinitely more possible when you know, I don't need to succeed in one conversation. I don't need to succeed in one day.

Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (53:35.766)
The most meaningful dreams will be, if it takes a thousand days to get there, I'll slow down. I'll do a thousand. I'll do 10,000 conversations. I'll make 10,000 little teeny tiny changes and I will get there because that spark is like, the most important thing. It's the most important thing. And it's a tragedy when we end up believing en masse. think that part of the sacrifice being a husband and wife is you have to

You know, you have to selflessly sacrifice all your dreams, wishes and wants and have the kids succeed. And this type of thing is like what? You have to wait 20, 25, 30 years to then finally make space for you. That's just not healthy. That's not a good embodiment. That's not good role modeling for your kids. So your kids will learn the same. It's like, oh, I can go for my dreams now. They told me, go for your dreams, go for your dreams. But...

When you get into marriage, stop going for your dreams. I definitely want the girls, number one, selfishly allowing myself and I want for me to manifest my dreams and live them out now. And I'm loving having this system that I can do it. And the three agreements that you're doing it with me and we're, we're manifesting that. But as a dad, I just so want my girls not to live through what I've been through and you've been through where you, you you go for nearly two decades in marriage and

Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (55:02.882)
you finally wake up and go, our dreams are really important. We got to bring these back in line. I want their nervous systems entering marriage and the people of the world, the people listening in that our kids can get into their first day in marriage and go, I've got a dream. And I'm not going to stop bringing it. I'm going to talk it into being. Whether you're supporting me or not, I'd rather your support, but I'm going to bring that spark to a blazing bushfire.

Mm-hmm.

speaker-1 (55:32.398)
Yeah, because happy marriage fuels big dreams with small steps. Okay, I think that's it.

What a happy marriage you'd have.

speaker-0 (55:39.438)
I

speaker-0 (55:43.032)
That's That's another beautiful episode.

Yeah. Thank you everyone for listening in at the He Wants, She Wants, My Edge podcast at this new episode. yeah, go ahead. Get what you want. Get your dreams manifested. Bye.

Hell yeah. Bye guys!