Hello beautiful souls! We all desire great love. Yet, there seems to be a lot in the way when it comes to cultivating a relationship we crave. Why is that? It’s time for a new template ― one rooted in choice, truth, safety, and respect. To get us there, Mark Groves, a champion of positive philosophy, provides us a roadmap, one he’s walked himself, to step out of protection mode and into connection mode. Today, Mark joins us to show you how you can take your relationships to a whole new level. DM me on Instagram @angelpodcast to let me know what you thought about this episode!

To learn more about Mark Groves’ work:
MarkGroves.com
Mark’s book Liberated Love is available at his website
Listen to Mark’s podcast The Mark Groves Podcast on his website

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TRANSCRIPT

Julie Jancius: Want to know what’s coming up on today’s episode? Here’s a preview.

Mark Groves: Imagine if every Tinder profile said that, like, why don’t we use this relationship to come so alive that it just, like, completely transforms us as individuals. And if one of us or both of us happen to grow away, we can actually trust that. But maybe even in just honoring the possibility that you can grow away is actually what allows us to grow together.

Julie Jancius: Hello, beautiful souls. You’re listening to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host and author, Julie Jancius. Did you know that you can listen to this show everywhere podcasts are found? It’s true. Now I have three free gifts just for you. First gift, I give away a new reading each week to a person who’s left a five star positive review of this show, then submitted it to me using the contact form@theangelmedium.com. contact I hope I’m calling your number next. Second gift. If you’d like a new daily angel message, join me on Insta at angelpodcast. Third free gift. If you’d like to know the name of one of your guardian angels so that you can work with them even more closely, go to the homepage of my website, theangelmedium.com, and submit your contact info at the very top. I’ll email you back personally with the name of one of your Angels. Okay, as we begin the show, I want you to feel the presence of your Angels surrounding you. And just know that the loving, positive messages you resonate with today are messages for you from your Angels and loved ones on the other side. Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host and author, Julie Jancius. Friends, today we have on a, fellow podcast host, Mark Groves. He’s the author of the new book Liberated Love, releasing codependent patterns and create the love you desire. Mark, I know a lot about a lot of topics, but codependency is not one of them. But it fascinates me, and I’m so excited to have you here today.

Mark Groves: My gosh, I’m so excited to be here. And, you know, it was, it’s one of those subjects that when you start learning about it, you’re like, oh, my God, that’s me. You know, that’s, that’s just how it goes.

Julie Jancius: Well, for sure. And, you know, I want to come at this from a couple of different perspectives because last year there were a couple of different documentaries that came out about the spiritual community and people guaranteeing that they would find you love and find your soulmate. I personally.

Mark Groves: Oh, yeah, I know what you mean.

Julie Jancius: Yeah. I don’t believe in the soulmate. Not in the way that we think about it anyway. I don’t believe that there’s just one person here, for us. Do you think that that thought that there’s just one other human being out there that’s right for us? And if we miss them, you know, we’ve messed everything up. Do you think that that messes with a lot of people?

Mark Groves: Yeah, I mean, first off, I think the belief that there’s only one person is such a scarce belief. So, you know, and that’ll immediately make us hold on to people who are not that person, who we have what we might call a connection with, but they’re maybe tremendously unhealthy. Like, I know a person who is still not dating anybody else because they believe that their twin flame is a person who’s in a relationship with someone else. So the idea, if the principles twin flame did not exist, this person would not be in that dynamic. It’s a principle. It’s, it’s this idea. It’s a, it’s a theory, and it’s not a helpful theory. I think we should only really adopt theories that help expand how we show up, empower us. Because if you believe that there’s only one person, then the moment you have a connection, you’re going to tell everybody, I met my future husband, wife Barbara, partner, soulmate. And then you’re going to see red flags and you’re going to be like, damn it, I told everybody this is my person. I guess I got to stay in this. And so we become a prisoner to the title. I think the better thing, or at least in my perspective, the more liberating perspective, is you have many soulmates, and there are all people who give you back pieces of your soul that they awaken you to what’s possible. They awaken you to your potential. So if your soulmate is an unavailable person who ghosts you after five conversations. Conversations on Tinder. Great. They actually just taught you that. Wasting your time pining over someone, you’ve had five conversations and ghosted you. That’s a great lesson to learn. Like, you know, if, if you are not discerning

00:05:00

Mark Groves: about who you choose in relationship. Yeah. you know, I remember Carolyn may saying, I’d have you fall in love if you’re terrified of being left. I’d have you fall in love with someone deeply for three months, and then I’d have them leave you I believe in the same thing. Like, we’re drawn to people to invite us to heal and to grow and to change, and we might as well choose one that has a perspective of abundance. Yeah.

Julie Jancius: You know, before we hopped on the call, you said something that really spoke to my heart. You said, you know, a lot of people are in relationships with someone who’s a project. And do you find yourself having to tell men and women, I, give you permission, or give yourself permission to not have to take on that project of fixing someone else or helping someone else, because you can’t really fix another person, right?

Mark Groves: No. And, and when we explore why we date people, we just happen. We just happen by chance, fate, to keep finding ourselves in relationships with people who never seem to have their poop in a group or they have an addiction or they have some. You know, we’re always in the supportive role. We’re always the one trying to get other people to listen to the podcast, read the book, do the thing, and we realize, well, wait, maybe, maybe there’s something here for me. Maybe I’m part of this dynamic. And so, yeah, there is the permission part, but deeper, below the permission of saying, you know what? You don’t have to date people, you have to help. There’s actually adults who can show up. It would actually require that we create space for those people to show up. But on a much deeper level, we have our own adaptive strategy, which is that we learned when we were likely young that in order to maintain safety and protection value in our relationships or family, we had to take care of people. in order to. Maybe we had someone who had unpredictable emotional reactivity. So we had to always be on eggshells and intuit what other people needed. So what came very naturally to us just seems to be exactly how we find value and worth in a relationship. So unconsciously, if you need me, you can’t leave me. And so I, if you all of a sudden don’t need me anymore, then I don’t have a role anymore, and then I don’t feel safe.

Julie Jancius: Absolutely. Let’s go back a step. How do you know when someone’s a project that you don’t want to take on and. Yeah, let’s start there.

Mark Groves: Well, I think to be able to just first look at ourselves, do we date people who always need a support, saving, fixing, all that kind of stuff, so then we at least know that it’s really about. Do we have a pattern?

Julie Jancius: Yeah.

Mark Groves: Secondly, look, we all have stuff that we can fix, that change, grow from. So, you know, this isn’t about finding someone who’s perfect, because that doesn’t exist. This is about finding someone who actually, when they do identify, maybe through our own reflections, because that’s part of relationship, too, is my, you know, my wife offers me insights into how I’m showing up in ways that I can’t see. That’s only through relationship that they get exposed. And. And so really, it’s like, can they hear the feedback and do they actually take actionable steps to change? And, you know, you’re with a project when it doesn’t matter what it is, they never actually do the thing. They always say they’re going to do something. They never do. You know, it’s not dissimilar to be in a relationship with an addict who doesn’t heal their addiction. Right? It’s like they’re always going to change something, do something. And you realize that that part of our own addiction is staying in relationship. It’s the addiction to wanting to fix people.

Julie Jancius: Fascinating. So on the opposite end of the spectrum, I saw the social media post sometime last year, in 2023, and, the. The person was saying, you should. Something to the effect of, you should get in a relationship that helps you grow, but you shouldn’t get into the relationship. That kind of. You both have the same inner child wounds and the inner child needs. And I thought that that was really interesting, because in my relationship with my husband, and I love him to bits and pieces. We’ve done tons of work on ourselves. Big fans of Julie and John Gottman, too. Read all those books. his mom left the family at the same age that my dad stepped away from the family, both in affairs. And so the way that I was hurt by men and just didn’t have a good relationship with men in general, he felt the same towards women. And when we got together, we both had something that, like, I knew he could never hurt me because of the way that he’d been hurt, and he knew the same vice versa. I

00:10:00

Julie Jancius: couldn’t hurt him. And I felt kind of triggered when I saw this person’s post, because I think that we have done such great growth work together, and that finding, like, I don’t think I could have healed those parts of myself without him. And we’re in just such a healthy space now. Can you talk to this at all for those who are out there, who are kind of hearing the same rhetoric, maybe from the spiritual community?

Mark Groves: Well, I think it really points to that. Not everything you read on the Internet is true. And, you know, the other day I was sharing a story about someone who’d been through some things and the story was loosely based on a friend of mine who had asked permission if I could share sort of the archetypal version of that story. And in the comments people were criticizing my friends in the story. The character they were criticizing was the persons partner. And my friend messaged me and said Im really wanting to get into the comments and defend my partner because thats not true. And im like, it’s not about you, it’s just a story, it’s not personal. No one knows your names, it’s not even it’s loosely based on your experience. And he was like oh yeah, that’s true. It’s not a. No one even knows my partner. They don’t even know that something similar happened in our lives. I say that because it’s like it’s so important that we’re discerning about. Because when you go, well, my experience with my husband is completely different. It’s actually through a similar wounding that we found healing because we had Empathy and understanding of each other’s wounds. We both were like, we’re committed to working through this. The fear of abandonment, how that triggers unworthiness. So your story already disproves that. Right? And I think for us to be really mindful that like, it’s like when I post something on the Internet and I say, oh well, this is what maybe someone who’s anxiously attached might be prone to. Someone will say, well, not me. Like, great, not you. That’s so good that, you know it’s not you. And I think what’s beautiful is you’re drawn to anybody who is bringing up some form of wound. But not everybody that you’re in relationship with is going to want to work through wounds. Yeah, like, look, usually our partner triggers us in the way that a parent who we were most triggered by triggered us. So it’s like our partner wounds us in a familiar way that the parent who wounded us the most. Is that always true? No. Because let’s say we had a father who left and got into an affair with another woman. Sometimes our wound can be with our mother for not standing up to our father, for not actually expressing herself, for not fighting about, you know, for saying that wasn’t okay. Maybe excusing the affair or like justifying it or keeping it silent or secrete. So sometimes our wound can just manifest differently. I say all that because no matter what we’re drawn into, there’s an opportunity to figure it out. I think when we start to say, this is the way, like, no relationship can ever work, when I don’t think that’s true, I think two adults who are really curious and committed to growth can actually work through anything. What I will say, and the caveat to that is sometimes the pain is so big and the rupture is so deep that it is actually easier to start over. And, I don’t get to decide that. It’s when you say to someone, does it feel easier for you? For some people, the answer will be yes. I have no desire to work it through with them. And I think we all have to honor that, that everyone’s journey is their own. I think we’re afraid of being left ourselves. So when someone chooses to leave a relationship, it brings up all our deepest stuff.

Julie Jancius: Absolutely. Absolutely. Ready for a little getaway that completely resets your energy? We’re hosting a live in person spiritual retreat called a whole new you. It’s the weekend of October 4 in Oakbrook, Illinois. This spiritual retreat is all about your own personal healing and growth, reconnecting with yourself, learning to connect with your Angels. And I’m going to talk about all new Angels that I’ve never talked about anywhere before. And you’re going to leave with more personal peace, purpose, clarity, and confidence than ever before. Learn more and see the itinerary@theangelmedium.com. retreat that’s theangelmedium.com backslash retreat. Links are in the show notes and friend, I cannot wait to meet you and hug you in person.

00:15:00

Julie Jancius: There’s a lot of energy that you can feel within relationships. Where would you say that a lot of empaths tend to be codependent because they feel so much? Or what leads a person in general to that codependency?

Mark Groves: Yeah, so we define codependency in the book as any relational dynamic where we source safety at the cost of ourselves, our own needs, and our overall sense of well being. So basically, it’s like we source safety and security at the expense of us, at the expense of ourselves. Now, on the other side of that is in that codependent dynamic is the project, right? The person. Now, what happens in those dynamics is you have one person who’s going to say, all right, I’m going to stop abandoning my needs and my wants, so I have to stop trying to fix the other person. But the other person in the relationship dynamic has the identity that they are a problem, that they are something that needs to be fixed. So in order for that dynamic to work, you have to have someone who also believes they’re broken. And often, relationship dynamics, people don’t know how to relate to each other from a healthy place. So, you know, it’s like where one person’s sick and the other’s healthy, the one person gets better, the other person gets sick. It’s very interesting. Like, we don’t know how to relate to each other from wholeness. I say all this when you talk about empaths. I always think, like, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? It’s like, I think empathic. I’m empathic, right? I would identify as empathic. I think people who identify as empathic or like a highly sensitive person, often what goes with that is I just love all out, but, you know, like, I’m not mean, I take the high road. These are all ways that we, like, moralize our survival strategy, that it’s like, it’s what we often call our personality, is our survival strategy. So, like, I’m a perfectionist. It’s like, no, you needed order and you needed to be the best of the best, because when there isn’t there something, you’re afraid something might happen.

Julie Jancius: Wow.

Mark Groves: So, yeah, like, empathic people. That’s great. Like, if you think about it, what makes people the best therapists, the best coaches, the best healthcare practitioners, the best interviewers? They’re all people who are highly attuned to other people, to the energetics of other people. What happens is they’re highly attuned because they need to be highly attuned in order to read the room, in order to maintain safety and keep the system, usually the family going, keeping it together. But what happens is that eventually, what is your survival strategy is really a hyper honed skill. In order for Empathy to not become a form of toxicity, we have to have boundaries. You know, when everyone’s like, I’m empathic, though, I just, I’m like, you need boundaries more than anybody. And whenever I say you, I mean.

Julie Jancius: No, for sure, for sure. I think it’s so true.

Mark Groves: Well, and so what happens is, if you want to change your survival strategy and turn it into a superpower, it has to stop being correlated to your self worth. So a lot of times, like, let’s say a coach, I’ll just pick on my own space, or like a therapist. People naturally come to them with their problems. They’re really good at listening. They’re good, oh, they can give all the solutions in the world, and then they start charging money for that. They start working in that space, they get a degree, whatever, but they need their client to need them. So there still is a codependent hook in the dynamic with the client. So if in the expression of your work, whatever that is, you need the other person to need you, then there is an unconscious imprisonment of the person you’re working with because your value is still connected to it. These are, like, the very subtle ways that this. It’s like when someone is doing any type of work and they charge money for it, and then they have the fear of raising their price. Well, if I raise my price, then I might not allow someone to have access to my work. Let’s say, for example, I remember working with this group of health coaches, nutritionists, therapists, and I said, show of hands. Who here thinks there are, like, millions of resources on the Internet to learn about anything? Everybody. So, if someone can access you because you raised your price by $50 an hour, do they still have places to go? M. Yeah, of course they do. But there’s, like, a fear, like, if it’s not me, then no one else will be able to help them.

Julie Jancius: Gotcha.

Mark Groves: So there’s, like, a bit of, And I say this word is. Is just gives context to it, but there’s, like, a bit of a narcissism to it, to the wounding

00:20:00

Mark Groves: in that. It’s like, it’s me. I’m I’m the solution. Like, there’s no one else. And, like, I remember when I first heard Wayne Dyer, I was like, holy crap, like, this guy. Then you hear Ram Dass, and they’re all saying similar things, and they’re all needed. So I hope that answers your question. They’re all needed, right? And it’s not about. It’s not about not needing one another. It’s just about our need for one another not to be correlated to our self worth. Like, healthy relating isn’t about, like, the opposite of codependency is overt independence, overt individualism. That’s not healthy either. But there’s a lot of music written about that. Like, I’ll never need anybody anymore. Like, I can’t depend on people. These are all wound based. Like, you can feel the energy of it is guarded. There’s walls in that. And it’s really about, like, can I depend on you when I need you? And can you depend on me? But can we also be clear? Like, what is my lane? What’s your lane? That, like, your dreams and your sovereignty, your individuality is something the relationship celebrates. We don’t actually need you to collapse and get rid of what you love, we actually want you to step more fully into that. Imagine if every Tinder profile said that, like, why don’t we use this relationship to come so alive that it just, like, completely transforms us as individuals. And if one of us or both of us happen to grow away, we can actually trust that. But maybe even in just honoring the possibility that you can grow away is actually what allows us to grow together.

Julie Jancius: That’s beautiful, because it’s true. I mean, you’re going to grow. You’re going to grow regardless. And you either grow together or you grow together for as far as you can go. And then there is a part, like, a time that you kind of have to go separate ways. And I completely get that, and I understand that. I want to kind of break things down, because you’re blowing my mind here, Mark. I think you said two things in kind of similar ways, but I want to kind of go back through them. So abandonment triggers a, fear of neglect, which is really unworthiness. And I want to go into, what does that unworthiness really look like in a day to day? Like, how can you see it showing up in people? Because we all hear that you are worthy. You know, and back in 2016, it was all over the Internet, you are worthy. But what does that actually look like when you’re seeing it, in a person? But then you went around and you kind of said it another way. Your personality is your survival strategy, but you can really change that survival strategy. Did you call it to a success strategy?

Mark Groves: A superpower?

Julie Jancius: Superpower. Ooh, yeah.

Mark Groves: like, the very thing that makes you. That you had to over develop.

Julie Jancius: Yeah.

Mark Groves: To survive can actually be when harnessed as a skill rather than a survival strategy, is that’s when it turns into a superpower. So, you know, it’s. We really become enslaved to our wounds till we don’t. You know, because they’re running the show. Like, why would I keep dating unavailable people? Why would I tolerate abusive dynamics? It’s only because I learned to the context, to what makes us develop the way we do relationally is so important, because then we go, oh, my God, like, the defensiveness, the way I shut down, the anger, the walls I have. I hate them, or I can’t believe I still do that. We actually have to learn to soften into them because they’re the exact skill we needed to get to the moment where we can even ask the question. But if we keep hating things, we can’t learn from them. We can’t soften, we can’t let them go because we’re still putting them in a box and saying, like, we’re going to reject it. But we know in human systems, but in true of self, if you reject anything, it just buries and reroutes and gets stronger, it’s all going to come out. It’s like you might not be talking about the hard things, but you are, by the way you text, by the way you avoid, by the way you consume drugs. Like, all these types of things are insulating us from self expression, from dealing with challenging life circumstances. So when we look at things like self worth, you are worthy is a really beautiful concept. But yelling affirmations in the mirror is not going to work. Not to say that affirmations don’t work.

Julie Jancius: Yeah, but if you don’t understand what they mean and you don’t, like, understand the intent behind them or where you’re taking it.

Mark Groves: Yeah. Like, I could say I love myself in the mirror all day, and it, might likely it will first feel foreign and it’ll feel like a lie. And most of us then want to be like, what feels like a lie. I’m like, well, let’s look at your choices. Do you love yourself? Oh, no, I don’t. so it is a lie. Okay, so really, the dissonance

00:25:00

Mark Groves: that comes up with the recognition of the lie is now I can be with the truth. I don’t love myself. The way I treat myself is not loving. I. The people I choose doesn’t reflect that. So when. If we bring it back to the fear of abandonment, when we did experience abandonment as a child, now our father or mother leaving for someone else has nothing to do with the value of the child, right? But when the child is left to tell the story to themselves, that’s the story they come up with 100% of the time. So when a child’s environment fails them in whatever capacity that is, the child then has the choice to make, the failure about who they are or the failure about the caregiver environment. But they almost always choose themselves, because to think your father or your mother are dysfunctional and failures is too much of an existential threat when you’re young now, when you have a healthy family around us and they say, we love you, your father leaving, nothing to do with you, your mother leaving, I love you, I’m not going anywhere. And as the child ages, you continue to be able to tell the truth of the story. Now, there are obviously lines of what is transparency and what is for a child to hear and not hear. And I’d say often we cross that line a lot. I would say when a parent gets left for someone else, often the parents rejection or actually gets shared with the child. And that’s actually not a healthy thing to share. Like the impact on themselves. They like make their child their therapist or like they want their child to hate the other person too. Which I can see as a natural response, of course, but we actually do need to insulate the child from that. But once the child grows up, the truth of the stories need to be told because we’re like, well, I don’t want to tell you all the truth about your dad because I don’t want you to not like your dad. And it’s like, well, actually, no, the truth exists and the child can feel the truth. And I’m like, imagine if we oriented from that place.

Julie Jancius: Yeah. What age is a good age to then fill them in, share that information?

Mark Groves: I would imagine when they’re a teenager, I mean, I’m not an expert on that space, but I, would imagine in my uneducated perspective, I’d say when they start to become a teenager. But also I think it’s something to have a discussion with, with the other person about, you know, like, I’m not going to hold your secrets for you.

Julie Jancius: Do you think that the cause, I completely get what you’re saying. Do you think that the parent who was betrayed, rejected can kind of hold this? If they’re not a healthy, like in a healthy space, they can continue to put the child in that place? Like they’re rejecting me too, if they’re not taking my side. I know we saw a lot of that, like in the 1980s and 1990s, but is that still happening today?

Mark Groves: Do you mean that the parent who, or the, the one partner who got rejected then tells the child we were both rejected?

Julie Jancius: no, kind of. More that they want the alliance with the child and they make the child their therapist because they want to have that camaraderie and they don’t want, I don’t know, to feel like a rejection. Like, well, you know, my husband, you know, completely hurt me. He tore up the family, but yet my child is still, I don’t know, learning from this person, being taught by this person. And that’s kind of what kind of plays into them, turning the child, not trying to excuse it whatsoever, just trying to understand it more, almost like,

Mark Groves: Again, I think, like the important delineation here is there’s a whole different conversation when you’re dealing with like narcissists and sociopaths. Right. And wanting our child to not be exposed to toxic people. Right. To abusive people to that kind of stuff. But I do think, yeah, there’s. There’s ways that we unconsciously want them to rally against the person that we want. The camaraderie, as you’re talking about, we want. What I really think is all this is really speaking to is, do we have healthy communities and families that can hold ruptures and actually explore, repair? And I would argue that m almost all of us are not exposed to that. If there is a infidelity in a friend group, let’s say a couple out of ten families, one couple has an infidelity that impacts the whole community.

Julie Jancius: We saw that recently. That happened in my neighborhood. We got a really tight neighborhood, and one. One neighbor left for the other neighbor’s husband. Yeah.

Mark Groves: And it’s like, that impacts the whole

00:30:00

Mark Groves: community. And, you know, if I was in the neighborhood, my interest would be like, can we actually all sit down and just talk about how this has impacted us? Can the couple, the. Both couples and the people who’ve left for each other, can we sit down and actually discuss that? You know, because at the end of the day, this is a far place to get to. But maybe we could just conceptualize this, which is, is there a possibility to hold love for both of them and then actually understand why they went about it the way they did and the impact on both their partners and the community so they’re not villainized. You know, there’s. I think it’s the Maasai people. Where is it the Maasai where, like, one person breaks a rule, and then they, like, sit them down in the middle and they tell them how much they’re loved?

Julie Jancius: I think you’re right. Yeah. And actually, I like that you said that, because that’s the rule that I tried to take, too, is I just don’t like to make good guys and bad guys. There’s always different triggers and different things that we’ve been through, and we’re all different people and we’re all going through a different journey. I really want to kind of go into this more. When it comes to codependence. How can you start to take steps if you feel that you’re a codependent person, to get out of that codependency? And does that always mean leaving a relationship? Or can you know that you’re codependent, stay in the relationship and figure it out together? Third question. Can two people be codependent within the relationship? And how often does that happen, too?

Mark Groves: Okay, first question. Where do you begin?

Julie Jancius: Yeah. Steps.

Mark Groves: In our book, we walk people through that process. So we actually like the way it’s structured is to look at what shaped you in a relationship. What do you want to create from a relationship? Let’s just pause what we’re doing. And then how do we create that? So we structure it with, we call it relationship 1.0, the sacred pause in relationship 2.0. So the idea is like, whether you’re single, dating, or in a relationship, there is actually, if you’re. If you’re with someone, ideally you’re both navigating the book together. I do think that it is possible to change a relationship with one person changing, but what it is going to do is invite the other person to change, too. So it was like if you and I were doing the cha cha, and that’s our old relationship style, and then all of a sudden, I learn about the two step, and then all of a sudden, you and I are in a conversation and you’re cha chai and I’m two stepping. It can start to happen. But what has to occur is that I’m not compromising what I want to create. I might invite you into the process, but if, like, you and I, let’s say how we handle conflict is I bring something up. Hey, you know what? Julia is something that’s really been coming up for me, is this. Would you mind if I shared more? And your natural response is to get defensive. But I also have never started a conversation that way before. And you’re like, wait, what? Normally you’re like, Julie, you always Julie, you never Julie. Da, da, da. So all of a sudden, you’re like, what’s this two step thing? And so you might get reactive. They called a Harriet Lerner calls it a change back move. It’s like to try to get the person back into the cha cha because it’s familiar. So if I can just actually stay with my change in your two step. Yeah. Then you might then be like, oh, And when you go to change it back and you get defensive, I might say, I hear that. I hear you getting upset. Maybe I could understand that a little more. You’re like, what the. You know what I mean? So because humans like patterns and familiarity, we really want, even if it’s dysfunctional, I want the familiarity of the pattern. It’s like we were talking about perfectionism and people pleasing and all these kinds of things. We do them because they’re familiar. They create unconsciously what we perceive as safety. Even though in order to be in a relationship with you, I might have to abandon everything I desire, all my needs, all my wants, but yet I experience abandonment in my own body. But I’m in relationship with you, right? So when you say, like, okay, first steps is starting to just be willing to explore our relational dynamics. Step two is then get curious. One of the exercises I really like people doing is like, where do you source safety, security, where do you give up power? Where do you exploit power? Like, these exercises are all in the book. I think what’s really interesting to start to explore, and this is just really simple, one is you just do an inventory of all the choices you make in your life. So everything you’re in relationship with, not just people. And at the core of it, actually start with, what are your top

00:35:00

Mark Groves: three values? Now, for most people who are, we’re calling quote unquote independent, so they really co dependence, they don’t really have, other people’s needs are what they orient around. So if I say, like, what do you want to create with your life? And I think women will be able to relate to this more because so much of the education relationally, historically has been like, everything is about everybody. You. And this could be true for men too. So this isn’t just a box, this is like, you might be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense to me. It’s like everything’s about everybody else. And when I go like, what do you desire? They’re like, no ones ever asked me that. I never thought about me. So a good way to figure out what you value is to just look at who you admire. Because who you admire is usually people who embody values that you wished to hold.

Mark Groves: If you just start with, okay, what are my top three values? Let me look at all these areas of my life. Are they in alignment with my values or are they nothing? What would need to change in these relationships? And is it possible to get them in alignment? And then you just go through the checklist and you start changing those relationships. Now things like choices over alcohol, drugs. Again, I’m not saying this is always true, just sometimes where our self abandonment gets medicated is in all of these social media, TikTok, Instagram, these are all ways that we medicate ourselves from self abandonment. So the first question was, where do I start?

Julie Jancius: Was the second question, what was the other part? I don’t know, but I think that you answered a lot of it. I can take us to more. I’ve got tons of questions for you.

Mark Groves: Yeah, let’s go. Let’s go. Maybe it’ll come back to me what your third question was.

Julie Jancius: Well, I just want to touch on one of the things that you said, because I see it so much in my work that, you know, women don’t often consult what they want or what they desire because they’re often looking out for everybody else. But that’s also where we lack intuition. Right? Like, when I work with women to get in touch with their intuition, and they say, I don’t know, I can’t hear it. Well, we’ve been tuning off our own wants, needs, desires, feelings, emotions, little sensors that just kind of rear their head, and we’ve been sweeping them under the rug for so long that we actually have to start paying attention to that in order to activate the intuition. You see that at all in your work, too?

Mark Groves: Yeah. So when we are people pleasers, when we prioritize everyone ahead of ourselves, we don’t have access to a full self. So if I say to you, hey, Julie, can you do this for me? Can you help me move? No one actually likes helping people move, let’s be honest. But if I’m like, can you help me move? And you’re like, oh, my God, I have a full thing. My plate is so big. And I’m like, well, you know, like, you’re such a good friend, and you’re like, ah, yeah, I can help you move, but in your body, you’re like, I do not want it. I don’t have time. I have so much. I got to do this, I got to do that. You’re not connected to your no m. And if we’re healthy relating, you might say, you know what? I have so much on my plate, there’s nothing more I’d rather do than help you. But I don’t have the capacity. As an adult, I’d be able to hear that and say, yeah, you do. And I so appreciate you telling me that you can’t make it and that, you don’t have this space right now. I honor your capacity. This is what healthy adulting is. I know what I just iterated for. So many people is so foreign, because if you don’t have access to a no, my body can’t trust you, and you can’t trust yourself. If you can’t trust yourself when a, no is really what wants to come out, then m, you can’t be connected to your intuition because your intuition needs the space of the no. Because that’s just the beginning, is the no. So whenever I’m working with someone and let’s say they’re like, I really want to find a great person, or really want to find a great job, a great purpose, it’s a great whatever. And I’m like, well, who do you currently pick? What’s in your life? What job do you have? And they’re like, well, right now I’m friends with all these dudes who want relationships with me, or I’m friends with dudes I want relationships with. I’ll be like, wait, so you want relationships with them? they don’t have capacity for a relationship with you. They tell you that you get friend zoned. Yeah. Do you want to be their friend? Like, if they all of a sudden said, I’d be in a relationship with you right now, would you say yes? They’re like, well, yeah, I would for sure. Like, so you don’t really just want to be their friend. Well, no, I do. No, you don’t. You’re like, signed up to wait, so m, you’re compromising

00:40:00

Mark Groves: what you ultimately desire from this person and getting what you get. Yeah. Okay, so you then want to do that. Well, someone else is going to come into your life who’s a yes. Now, what I often see here is the pursuit of unavailability, or someone who’s not aligned, who’s like, I don’t, I don’t want to date you. You’re a great friend. I’ll have a friends with benefits. I’ll do everything but actually be in a relationship with you. Okay, so you’ve got that. And then you want someone who’s good, who like, is reliable, chooses you, but you often don’t find those people attractive. This is like standard pattern, right? Mm.

Mark Groves: And I’ll say, well, you will never be able to pick this person, the yes till you can actually access the no. Because till you access the full no and actually honor and close out these relationships, your yes always comes with small print. You won’t be able to trust it. And I say all that because at the basis of intuition is you have to have access to choice first. You have to, and from a nervous system perspective, to get back into intuition means you have to thaw your nervous system.

Mark Groves: Most people are in some form of functional freeze or functional flight. And that makes sense in the world that we live in because it’s like all these people were like, yeah, I just watched CNN every night, or Fox, or I watch bombing videos on social media, and I’m like, okay, I’m not saying don’t know what’s going on in the world. Just don’t make it your world, because your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a bomb going off in the other part of the world and your very beautiful backyard or the patio or the balcony or the safe apartment you’re in, or the bedroom or whatever it is.

Julie Jancius: Yeah.

Mark Groves: And so it’s like intuition comes by increasing capacity to be in our own body. How many of us are in our own m bodies? Like, not many. And look at the food we eat. How can you be in your body when we eat? Like, which is not anyone’s fault. Like, the. I think the layers of systems that disembodied people are just so. It’s like, you can get overwhelmed by that, or you can just go, okay, well, I should only eat things that come from the earth for a little bit. How will that feel? That’s why, like, some of the most radical diets are not diets. They’re just like, hey, eat plants and meat, you know? And, And then, of course, we want to find every hack, every shortcut. We want every shortcut. Yeah. That was a long rant.

Julie Jancius: No, no, I love it. I love it. Well, and I’m wondering, too, you know, one of the things that I was taught by my therapist, we were just talking about this because my mom ended up getting into her second marriage with her high, school sweetheart. And I have a lot of clients who kind of pine over that very first love and going back to the Soul mates thing, just kind of attached to. There’s one person for me that’s the right person. And my therapist said something striking, which was that the first person you’re in a relationship with, your brain sets off the most chemicals for. And that it makes us kind of delusional in thinking that that’s the best person for us. But it’s often not. It’s just that you got a higher degree of chemical from that person. but, I like what you were saying about the. No, because I often teach an intuition. There’s, a. What is his name? John something. We saw him. He’s a comedian, and we saw him recently, and he has this old, like, Netflix special where he talks about working at SNL and, like, one of the guys from the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, coming in and just how decisive Mick Jagger was with all of the writers at NSDeV, SNL, where he’s like, they’re talking about this or do this, and all these different opportunities of skits. That he can do on the show. And he’s like, no, no, no.

Mark Groves: Yeah.

Julie Jancius: And I was like, that’s intuition. You have all of these options within the world, and you have to know what your nos are to be able to get to that. Yes. But once you finally do get to that. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Does it feel so good?

Mark Groves: the best.

Julie Jancius: The best, yeah.

Mark Groves: To be connected back to joy and possibility. Because even if you’re like, maybe I do need to leave my relationship.

00:45:00

Mark Groves: What happens if you just actually just look at the truth of that, the possibility of that. One of the questions you asked earlier, do we need to leave our relationship to change it? Absolutely not. But sometimes the answer is leaving the relationship. And whenever I’m working with couples, you can’t just take off the table that ending the relationship is a possibility, because it’s always a possibility. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s the one. Like, if you get two people who are like, that’s. We’re not even going there. Like, this is what we’re committed to. So beautiful. But if you have two people and one of them’s going, like, I might want to go. We just have to bring forward that truth. There has to be safety for that truth, because if we go, well, you both have to be all in. You can’t say you’re not. But I kind of am not. oh. So then they hide it. But if we can actually hold the possibility or explore what leaving might be or what. Why that’s coming up, that actually creates more truth in the relationship, more capacity, and, like, ultimately we repeat what we don’t resolve. So, you know, it’s like, pining over a high school sweethearts. I love what your therapist said because, like. Like, that’s the idea of hedonic adaptation. Like, everything the first time is the most exciting, you know? And that’s like, you know how when you listen to a song, a lot of. I’m kind of guilty of this, but it’s like you listen to the first 30 seconds, then you’re like, let’s go to the next. And there’s. It’s true. When you eat chocolate, like, the first time you ever had chocolate, I mean, my son just had chocolate. He’s 14 months old, and I just saw his brain be like, oh, my God. Like, how will I ever have regular breast milk again? But I say that because I’m sure that my, high school sweetheart is not pining over potentially getting back in a relationship with me. but I think we often pine over possibilities, because maybe m we can’t or we don’t know how to create what we desire as possible within the relationship we’re in. The. So we often desire alternate realities as a way of surviving the reality we’re in. So we go into imagination for kids, and adults. But as kids, we learn to ruminate, we learn to spine over things because we can’t change our circumstances. And so when we can really step into creation, then we could say, well, what is it about my high school sweetheart that I ideate that I fantasize about? Oh, it was this, this and this. Can I create that in my relationship? Is there a way to do that? I want to also, I just want to be mindful that sometimes the relationship we’re in is not, it’s not possible to create in. And so that could be true, but sometimes we just don’t try because it’s easier to be the victim of our relational circumstances and blame our partner for the inability to create something when we maybe never have invited them to.

Julie Jancius: What does that look like? What does that mean?

Mark Groves: So instead of like, let’s say we’re not having as much sex anymore, if any, we might say we don’t have sex anymore, which I’m sure a lot of people have said. But imagine if we say, like, I really miss you. I really miss intimacy with you. I desire to create more opportunities for that. I’ve been really thinking about you a lot and really wanting that, missing that connection that’s very different than you don’t ever want sex.

Julie Jancius: Very.

Mark Groves: Different one. The person’s like, oh, you miss me?

Julie Jancius: Like, ah, ah, you’ve been thinking about me.

Mark Groves: Exactly. There’s a, it’s not confrontational, but it’s, it’s, it’s creation oriented, it’s relational. But a lot of us, I mean, I certainly, when I was younger, would have said the first one that we’re not having sex. What’s wrong with you? Like, why don’t you desire? What’s wrong with me that there’s no desire? As opposed to now being like, well, I know that that form, because, like, relationships is really a competency part of it too. You know, there’s like the skill set of language, the skill set of communication. You know, if I asked 100 people, what’s the most important skill you need in relationship? I would say 99 would say communication. And yet we don’t take the time to learn m how to be great communicators. We don’t take the time to heal how we respond in conflict. And, you know, it’s a, that should be a class in school. Really?

Julie Jancius: Yeah. I’ve been thinking a lot about this entire talk. Like, as we’re talking and processing and you talking about like, how that fear of neglect leads to this unworthiness. And you said before, a lot of us just

00:50:00

Julie Jancius: don’t have a lot of resources and people around us. And this is a message that I try and spread. I wrote about it in my book that you need an earthbound spirit team. And my mom always taught it to me, like a pie. Like, your husband or your partner is just one slice of the pie and your kids are just one slice of the pie. And my husband is the perfect Man for me in every way, shape and form. But he’s not a very spiritual person in the traditional sense. Like, I can’t sit down and just talk to him about spirituality or have these like, really deep conversations for days. Like I can have with some of my girlfriends. And so I get that from my girlfriends. And yet I don’t want to overload my family and my friends with just all of the day to day, like, heaviness that’s going on in my life. So I have my counselor. actually, I have two different counselors. I have my own personal counselor. Yes. And, then we have a marriage therapist. Right? And then I have the ladies in the neighborhood that I go walking with, and I have my old college friends that, you know, you could share anything with and say anything to, and they’re still going to love you. And then the communities that I’ve built where. But it didn’t happen overnight, like, building that up for myself, that earthbound spirit team, where I’m like, okay, I’m going to live in a healthier way. I’m going to have different people for different things. Took a while, like, it took a good five years to probably build up what I wanted to build up outside of, obviously, my kid and husband. But where would you start for that? Of like, people saying, I just want more outlet. I don’t want to have to put everything on my partner. I want these different outlets to connect. Where would you start with that?

Mark Groves: I mean, what you’re saying is so beautiful. It’s village. Yeah, I think it’s Esther Perel who, so famously said, we depend on our partners for everything a village used to give us. And we expect them to give it all to us to be our therapist or friend or this or da da da. And I think part of being in a more, globalized world is we move away from family, or we’re not close to family, or our family maybe is not healthy. Right? So there’s also that. But it’s like our chosen family. I think the intention first is. So I think my, sense is, I don’t want. This might be a projection, but my sense from the conversations online, what you’re saying, I know in your community, is like, people are desperate to find community again. They’re feeling disconnected. We might have all this technology, and yet we are longing to be in the company, like literal company of other people. I wrote something recently where I was saying, we think the sign of success is a million connections on social media, when it’s really the answer to the question, do you have one person to call at 02:00 a.m. you know, that’s. That’s, the greatest predictor of your mental health right now, is the answer to that question.

Julie Jancius: Wow.

Mark Groves: And a lot of us don’t. And, you know, there’s a beautiful line from Francis Weller where he says, we spend our lives seeking a place of belonging, and at some point, we actually have to become the place of welcome.

Mark Groves: And I think of that wound where we’re, like, seeking home. And then at some point, we have to become the home that invites the seekers. And so what you’ve created, I mean, beautiful, what a network of village. And we all can create that. But often our wound of exile, our wound of not belonging, doesn’t allow us to see connections. You know, when they ask people who are depressed to make accurate audits of connections in their lives, they don’t talk about the happy birthdays they got because they miss it. The information gets filtered by their lens. This is the bias that we have. And I’m not saying people don’t experience aloneness or anything like that, but we can actually go out and seek connection. I think about how many free meetup groups there are. When I go hiking, inevitably, I’m always meeting people hiking. So it’s like, do what you. If you start to do the things you love, you will meet people doing what they love, too. And, to me, I think it’s like, the only thing getting in the way of that is the belief that it’s not possible. Because it’s like, if you want to learn how to become a master at anything. I met this guy the other day. We were just both parked at, like, a yemenite ocean vista, and. And I, his car was cool, so I started talking to him about his car. He was like, 25

00:55:00

Mark Groves: and he was telling me all about. He was so passionate about his car. And I was like, oh, what kind of m. I don’t know much about motors, but I’m like, what kind of motor is that? you know, I’m engaging with him, and he’s like, it has a turbo. I’m like, I did know that this car doesn’t normally come with a turbo. And I was like, oh, that’s cool. Where did you get that done? He said, I installed the turbo myself, and this guy is in, like, a blazer. He’s a sharp looking guy. And I was like, where did you learn how to do that? He’s like, YouTube. Hi. You put a turbo on your motor from a video you watched on YouTube, and he’s like, yeah. And he’s like, it’s awesome. Do you know how fast my car is now? And I’m like, I can only imagine, but I’m, in my mind, I’m going like, how amazing. Like, you can learn how to do anything.

Julie Jancius: Yeah.

Mark Groves: You can create anything. And I remembered saying to a friend of mine, I love your. She said to me, I love your optimism, but there’s no way, like, a person who’s five two is ever going to dunk a basketball. And I was like, I get it, but it’s like, can we speak to the possibility that is within everyone? The only thing that limits what we can create is other people’s limitations that we made our own. Because all you have to do is hear one person’s story who came from nothing. Ultimate trauma, ultimate anything. And they, like, created, like, look at the childhood stories both you and your husband have about your parents and people. If we were to just, like, draw a paper. Didn’t know. We just said, this happened to these kids. Do they have successful relationships as adults? Most people would probably be like, no, there’d be too much trust issues. There’d be ditto. because we think divorce, divorced parents leads to divorced children. That’s not true. And certainly, you can teach just as much to a child by staying in dysfunctional relationships as you can by becoming dysfunctional when you depart. But I would say, like, in the hierarchy of ideal families, it’s like parents who love each other together, parents who love each other apart, parents who dislike each other together or apart, doesn’t matter. They’re both impacting the children. So it’s like your biography, I think it’s. Tony Robbins says, your biography is not your destiny. And it’s so true. Till. Till it’s not. Because so many of us can make all the reasons why we can’t become everything we desire, but we need to find the reasons to do it. Just like what you’re talking about with village and community. It’s like, I don’t have one. Do you know how many other people are saying that? Create one.

Julie Jancius: Oh, my God. I. You know, everybody wants. Wants that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there are so many people, just so that our podcast listeners know, that are creating those. Those communities. women who’ve lost husbands or partners are creating communities around that. women who have lost children are creating communities around that. And then we’ve got membership, and. And there’s just so many different communities. So, yeah. Mark, I love this conversation, and you just radiate this beautiful energy, and I love how you speak. It’s very poetic and just talks to my heart and speaks to my heart. So thank you for who you are and, the work that you’ve given this world. Please tell everybody where they can find you, your books, and we’ll put all of that information in the show notes.

Mark Groves: Well, thanks so much for having me. Thank you for trusting me with your audience, and thank you to you listening, or watching. Just so grateful for your time. I know it’s one thing, at least in this time space continuum, we haven’t figured out how to get back. You can find me at, markgroves.com. i have a podcast called the Mark Groves podcast, the book you can get wherever books are sold. the audiobook. I’m a really big audiobook guy, and my wife and I, so I wanted to make it special. And so my wife and I actually have unscripted conversations at the end of each chapter about the content of the chapter. So, for those of you who really love that, that was such fun to create, and thank you for having me. I’m so grateful.

Julie Jancius: Oh, my gosh, of course. And are you on Instagram, too?

Mark Groves: You know, I am on Instagram, but I will not actively be using it anymore. I have since decided that, that platform itself is very extractive, and, I would argue, mirrors a narcissistic relationship dynamic. And I am a firm believer that I do not desire to consent to any relationship that is. That is not liberating. I wrote a book called Liberated Love. So it was like, as soon as I brought that book out, I was like, holy shit, what relationships am I in that are not liberating, that require me to play small or silence myself? And I was like, Instagram, I have 1.1 million followers, and I’m like, I can’t do it anymore.

Julie Jancius: Ah, well, bravo to you, mark. I mean, that’s just really refreshing to hear. I think that’s a completely different perspective. I hope everybody

01:00:00

Julie Jancius: gets your book because you get so much great stuff in there. my gosh, there’s so much that we just need in this day and age to get to our healthiest selves. So thank you so much. And, you know, when you write more books, if it feels right, come on back.

Mark Groves: Oh, my God, I would love to. You’re so kind. Honestly, I could, I could chat with you all day. You’re also funny, so I thank you.

Julie Jancius: Thank you, Mark. Have a blessed day.

Mark Groves: You too.

Julie Jancius: Thanks. Friends, I need your help reaching as many people as possible. If you’d like to support this podcast and help us spread more hope to the world, please book a session with me, join my angel membership or take my angel Reiki school. What’s the difference? If you’d like to know what messages, your Angels and loved ones have for you, you’ll want to book a session with me. The angel membership is all about your own personal spiritual healing. The membership takes you on a spiritual journey that teaches you how to create your own heaven on earth. And the angel Reiki school is for those who want to get certified in mediumship, angel messages and energy healing all at once. These are three ways you can help us share a message of hope and love with more people than ever before. Register for one or all three@theangelmedium.com. that’s theangelmedium.com dot. Now let’s pray together. As we do. I want you to pray in a way where you feel as though everything you want for yourself and the world has already come true. And you’re giving thanks. Why? Because this is the best way to manifest. So let’s begin. God, Universe, source, thank you. We’re so grateful that you’ve blessed this world with calm and peace for all. This calm and peace has spread like ripples, soothing the hearts of every Soul. Thank you for opening our hearts to abundance, allowing each of us to live our most authentic life and helping us to create our own heaven on earth. We thank you for the love and deep heart to heart connection that surrounds us every day in our relationships. We thank you for the abundance of health and aliveness we feel radiating from every cell in our and our, families bodies. Thank you for the gift of walking this life with us and guiding us every step of the way. Through your messages, we hear you through our own intuition and we feel you walking right by our side and we overflow with gratitude. Thank you for financial abundance and abundance of opportunities, miracles, blessings and prosperity in every way. We know that you want us to succeed so that we can show others how you want them to succeed too. Thank you for the boundless love, kindness, Empathy and compassion that binds us all together. Thank you for the laughter, fun moments of pure delight that fill us every day, especially today. God Universe Source thank you for blessing us beyond measure and allowing us to use our souls, gifts, talents, skills and abilities to serve the world. We love you. I love you. And in this we pray. Amen. Friends, we’re working on some pretty major things over here and if you wouldn’t mind saying a little prayer that these things come to fruition, if they’re God’s will, we’d so appreciate it. And please add a little prayer in for any specific thing you need right now too. Have a beautiful, blessed day and don’t forget to submit your contact info@theangelmedium.com. dot if you’d like me to channel the name of one of your Angels for you, sending you peace, bliss and many blessings.

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