Relationships are a sacred container for spiritual growth. But how do we nurture them so they can be deep, nurturing and give back to us all that we put in? We explore in this episode.

I sit with Rising Woman’s Sheleana to discuss:
-Why relationships often fail – and how to prevent it
-How to bring sacredness into your relationship
-How to bring spirituality into your partnership if your partner is not spiritual
-How to have an intentional wedding ceremony
-An incredible ritual that you can do at gatherings
-Whether the twin flames are “real”
-How to know if there is trauma bonding
-How we replicate wounds from our childhoods
-How to find magic in the mundane

And soul much more!

Grab a cup of rose tea, sit outside and enjoy this beautiful episode

Connect with Sheleana at https://risingwoman.com/ and http://www.instagram.com/risingwoman
Get her new book Becoming The One here: https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-One-Transform-Relationship-Patterns/dp/1797211676?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&linkCode=sl1&tag=sahararose-20&linkId=416aaec46831d2a1eaca1839445cd04a&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Join my Free Discover Your Soul Purpose Masterclass at www.iamsahararose.com/masterclass

Intro + Outro Music: Silent Ganges by Maneesh de Moor

Follow me your spiritual bestie to active your fullest expression + laugh along the way:
Instagram.com/iamsahararose
TikTok: @iamsahararose
Facebook.com/iamsahararose
+ Twitter.com/iamsahararose

Order My Books: www.iamsahararose.com/books

By accessing this Podcast, I acknowledge that the entire contents are the property of Sahara Rose, or used by Sahara Rose with permission, and are protected under U.S. and international copyright and trademark laws. Except as otherwise provided herein, users of this Podcast may save and use information contained in the Podcast only for personal or other non-commercial, educational purposes. No other use, including, without limitation, reproduction, retransmission or editing, of this Podcast may be made without the prior written permission of the Sahara Rose, which may be requested by contacting [email protected].

This podcast is for educational purposes only. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein.

TRANSCRIPTION

Episode 440: How To Have An Amazing, Deep + Sacred Relationship with Sheleana of Rising
By Sahara Rose

[00:12] Sahara
Namaste, it’s Sahara Rose and welcome back to The Highest Self Podcast, a place where we discuss what makes You, Your Soul’s Highest Evolvement.

[00:20] Sahara
If it’s your first time listening, welcome! This Podcast is all about making spirituality modern, fun and relatable, so it can actually serve your needs and allow you to become your fullest expression, and that is really why we’re here.

[00:35] Sahara
So, in today’s conversation, we’re diving deep into the alchemy of love – romantic love, relationships, partnerships, marriage.

[00:44] Sahara
For so many of us, our romantic partnerships are the things that can hold us back, really, from living our Dharmas, our soul’s purposes. And the reason why is, because, often, you know when you’re in a fight with your partner, or even if you’re really stressed out about not having a partner, it takes up all of your mental currency and then you’re not able to really utilize your energy to serve your gifts in the way that you are here to, to shine your light in the way that you’re here to, it just takes up all your focus.

[01:13] Sahara
So, this is why it’s so important for us to heal our relationships, and also allowing our relationships to also be huge priorities in our lives. I mean, at the end of the day, love is all that matters, love is the strongest vibration on planet Earth, it’s why we are here.

[01:30] Sahara
And I feel, so often, in our society, we negate love, we feel like it’s not important. We have these depictions of what love looks like, from Disney movies and romcoms, and we’re like “If it doesn’t look like that, then something’s wrong” and we quickly label others and label ourselves, instead of getting curious and really dropping in deeper into “Okay, why are there some discrepancies in my relationship? Why do I have these patterns? What do I actually want in a partnership? How have I changed over the course of this relationship? Maybe who I was, when I met this person, is not who I am today. Maybe I’m not communicating everything. Maybe I’m afraid of if I communicate my truth, what the feedback would be”. I mean, there’s so much that can show up and that’s really what we dive into in this conversation.

[02:15] Sahara
So, we start this conversation speaking about She’s beautiful wedding ceremony. So, if you’re not familiar with She (Sheleana) from Rising Woman, she has an incredible Instagram, you’ve probably seen it before (Rising Woman). It’s just, they offer such great quotes about relationships, and she has her new book coming out, that we speak about. So, we really start with why relationships often fail and how to prevent it?
She shares how to have an intentional wedding ceremony and what she did, different practices she did, and how you can actually take those practices into your own gatherings and have more intentionality and ritual towards everything, in every way that we gather; how to bring more sacredness into your relationship; how to talk to your partner about spirituality, if your partner is not “spiritual”; are twin flames real, you hear a lot of people talking about twin flames vs. soulmates, are they real, what was her take on it, what was my take on it; how do we know if there’s some trauma bonding going on in the relationship; how we often replicate wounds from our childhood in our romantic partnerships, and these wounds continue to show up until we heal them; how to find magic in the mundane; and honestly, so much more.
This is the kind of Episode you want to grab a cup of rose or passionflower tea, sit outside and enjoy, because it’s so rich, it’s so beautiful, but it’s also really real and it doesn’t romanticize an idea of a relationship, which I think is very important. And sometimes that’s the thing, even on Instagram, you don’t get the full picture, and that’s why I love podcasting, because you’re actually able to ask the questions that you genuinely have. And I really channel you and I’m like “What about this? What about that?”, I’m a very curious person, if you’re new to this Podcast, you’ll quickly realize that.
So, I ask the questions that show up in partnership and you’re able to hear her answer, and we’re able to both share stories and experiences of our own.

[04:12] Sahara
So, without further ado, let’s welcome Sheleana to The Highest Self Podcast.

___________________________________________________________________

[04:16] Advertisement
And before we get started, I’d love to share with you this special offer.

Now, before we dive into this Episode, I know, just because you’re listening to this Podcast, that you have a very important message to share and you are someone with so much joy and inspiration and passion inside of your heart, and you carry the codes to be the solution for a world’s problem, it just takes you understanding your Dharma, your soul’s purpose, the big reason why you are here.
So, if you’ve been asking yourself “Well, I really love spirituality, but how do I actually make this my career, how do I change the world, how do I make money doing what I love?” I was once asking all these same questions and that’s why I wrote my book “Discover Your Dharma, A Vedic Guide to Finding Your Purpose”.
So, you can get this book on Amazon, bookstores all around the world, it’s also published in many different languages. If you head over to iamsahararose.com/dharma you’ll be able to find the book in many retailers and submit your receipt to receive exclusive bonuses including my guided meditation, my tapping practice and my Dharma Embodiment practice. So, if you’re wanting to really make this the year of taking your message, your Dharma, your purpose, out into the world, then be sure to read my book “Discover Your Dharma”.
I am so excited to see what happens for you on the other side! Again, head over to iamsahararose.com/dharma and you can find that link in the show notes.

[05:45] End of Advertisement
___________________________________________________________________

[05:46] Interview

[05:46] Sahara
Welcome, Sheleana to The Highest Self Podcast, it’s so great to have you here.

[05:50] Sheleana
Thanks for having me, it’s nice to see you again.

[05:53] Sahara
And the first question I’d love to ask you is, what makes you your highest self?

[05:58] Sheleana
Being in nature. Always. Yeah, I feel my most highest self when I’m connected to the elements. I really feel disoriented when I’m in cities, and I know that as soon as I’m in the forest, or I’m in meadows or by the ocean, ii just feel so connected to truth.

[06:16] Sahara
It’s like being back in our natural environments that we’ve always been in since the beginning of time. And just, the invention of the city is so modern, I think our bodies are still really adapting to it, though, I don’t know if it totally ever will.

[06:28] Sheleana
I don’t think so. I think many of us, even people who really love and enjoy the city, I don’t think we realize how much it’s actually taking out of us.
Like, my husband and I, when we go, because we live on a little island now, and we go back to the city for things we inevitably need to do, we’ll notice that, when we’re checking out at the grocery store, people don’t make eye contact with us and they don’t say hi, and it makes sense because it’s very busy and everything’s very fast there. But, like, on our little island, when you go to the grocery store, you might be waiting behind our neighbor for 10 minutes because they’re having a chat with the check-out person (the cashier) and that’s just normal because everybody knows each other and there’s connection, so it’s like connection that’s prioritized. And then when you get into these city environments, they’re literally designed to almost disconnect us from ourselves and from nature. There’s also a lot of convenience (of course), but it comes at a cost.
And so, I have found that in order to really be connected to my work and to myself, and to be healthy, I need to be out of cities and in nature.

[07:35] Sahara
Yeah, to me, I always consider myself, growing up, like, I love cities, and I think the reason why is because I love community. So, you think city is, like, more people and more community, but it’s not actually. I mean, I live in Miami, it’s both beach and city, and I would say that I don’t really go out and meet community all the time the way that I thought. It’s almost like in New York, people are the loneliest, even though there’s people all around that maybe you don’t seek out as much of a connection as you would if you were in a small town where you just kind of needed to because you didn’t see humans for a long time.

[08:08] Sheleana
Yeah, it’s different. I mean, we lived in the city for a very long time, and even when I met my husband Ben, the first thing I said to him was like “Listen, I’m not going to live in the city forever, my worst nightmare would be to end my life in a city, I would feel like I had not succeeded in life. My main dream is to just be in the forest”.
And we had a wonderful community there, and we still do, and when we moved to the island, one of the things that I love about it is that I know all of my neighbors, we have all of their phone numbers, we share food. We get our eggs from our neighbor, our neighbor next door, he comes over every week and we work on the land together, it’s just this community coming together and we don’t even really have advertising online, here on our little island, so, if you need something, you have to ask, and it’s through word of mouth, which reminded me when I lived in Mexico too. That’s what I love about traveling, is, there is that more, you know, you rely on others thing, going on, whereas in the city, I remember coming back, after having lived in Mexico for 6 months, and I needed some really basic thing, and I was sort of in culture shock that I could just go get it, or that I didn’t need to ask my neighbors where to find it, I was just like “Oh, I’ll just go get it now”. And it was convenient but it was also like I was missing that connection.

[09:29] Sahara
Yeah, the interdependency that really happens in community. And I feel that so many of us are missing community andthat’s why we go to relationship, we expect that person to be our community and our best friend, our confidant, our business partner, our lover, and our mistress, everything in one, and then that person can’t be all of the things.
And I really want to talk to you, especially for lots of listeners and myself, we’re really big empaths and we, like, feel a lot of the things, and you can feel when your partner’s going through something, and then you’re going through it. But you can’t, you can’t have that person be your entire community, that’s what community is for.

[10:04] Sheleana
Exactly, yeah. When Ben and I got married, we had our wedding in a circular ceremony space and we walked toward each other from opposite ends of the room to symbolize equality. So, I didn’t walk toward him and I wasn’t given away, he didn’t just stand there waiting, we walked toward each other. And we had everybody in the ceremony, except for elders, all sat in chairs, and everyone else sat in a circular shape on the floor. And it was like we weren’t part of – they weren’t an audience and we were like performing, it was like we were all in circle together. And we had all of these different blessings, and we had a basket, and we had each person come up to us, at the end of the ceremony, and gift us a flower or a love note, or some totem, and give us a blessing, and we just exchanged loving words. And there was sort of this commitment that our ceremonialist asked of everyone, which was “You’re participating in this relationship now, you’re here to hold this couple when they need you”, and we took that very seriously. And that’s one of the things we prioritize in our relationship, is not just relying on each other, like, actually going outside of the family bubble to get support and to weave other people in, even if you don’t really need to. Like, if I have something coming up for me and I could easy just share it with Ben, I’ll think like “How is this an opportunity for me to get closer to one of my friends?” So, I’ll just, intentionally, weave them in, like “Hey, can we chat?”, it strengthens the relationship so much when we take the pressure off of it, and it’s really one of those things that we’re missing, is that community vibe, that deep friendship. Friendship is so important, and that’s sort of the foundation of conscious relationship, but it’s one of the ingredients that we really miss out on.

[11:51] Sahara
I’ve thought about ceremonies, but not in this way that you just said it of the woman standing there and waiting for – no, the man standing there and the woman coming up to him and be given by her father of, like “Here’s my property, you can have her now”. And yeah, can you speak a little bit more into, just, how we can be more intentional even with a marriage, wedding?

[12:14] Sheleana
Oh my gosh, I love this subject. Ben and I actually did – we did a little podcast on it like three years ago when we got married and we wrote a few blog posts about our vows. But we put so much energy into creating the ceremony, everything! There’s the ceremonialist who married us, her name is Nikaya Seeds, and she, I’ve been working with her for many years, she does spirit work and mentorship. And so, basically what we designed was, you know, the whole community was coming together to support us in our marriage. So, we didn’t just have, come watch us get married and we say the traditional vows, we created vows that were commitments of our love, weaving in a lot of personal responsibility. Like, one of our vows was literally ‘Not to rely on each other solely for emotional support, and to continue to build strong friendships’, and so, that was really important to us.
But the other thing that we did was, we created shadow vows or what we call ownership vows. So, we sat down together and we each wrote out some of the patterns of behavior and ways of being that are in our highest self, that we knew we were bringing into relationship, that just was, you know, “This is who I am, at this moment, this is what I’m bringing and I’m going to own it fully. I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t exist and I’m not going to pretend that it’s not going to impact you sometimes, and I’m also not going to make it your fault”. And so, we declared those things in front of the entire room, we had 60 people in attendance and said “I own that, sometimes, I’m going to project my past onto you”, or “Sometimes…”. One of Ben’s was “I’m going to be insensitive to your feelings and I’m not going to hold space”, and we just said those things out loud, we took that as a way to almost mark our progress. So, every year we look at our vows and we look at our shadow vows and we kind of do a self-evaluation and we’re like “Oh, actually, I think I’ve moved through this one, I can remove this from the ownership vows. I don’t feel that I’m bringing that anymore”. And then we also look at what are some new things that are birthing through us that we want to bring to the marriage?
One of the things that I decided last year when we renewed our vows was that I wanted to bring more ancestral reverence and ceremony into our relationship. And so, we looked at our marriage as an opportunity to negotiate, essentially, a relationship agreement, and it wasn’t about happily ever after, it was about rebirthing together, constantly, and supporting each other in having the most beautiful life, not just because of each other, but because of the freedom and the space that we create.
And so, we did a lot of different things, we didn’t have any alcohol at our wedding, we did cacao and we had our friends from Harmonic Arts bring all of these fun herbal elixirs (some people micro-dosed) and we just, we tried to make it a space where people could experience a wedding in a new way. And many people walked away from that being like “Wow, that was the first wedding that I’ve been to that didn’t have alcohol, it was actually fun!”
We had everybody dress up in festival gear for the second portion of the night and just party. And it was just really fun to create something where everyone felt included.
We did this gift practice where we had every single person come to the wedding with a sacred object, something that was important to them, that they weren’t quite ready to release, but they were willing to release. And then we had them put their name on a piece of paper inside of it and wrap it. And after the ceremony, everybody had their gifts in the center of the room and everybody had a chance to walk up to the pile of gifts and intuitively choose something. And then, when they did that, afterwards they would open it, at dinner, and they found out whose this was and then they went and connected to that person, to hear the story of the gift.

[16:02] Sahara
Oh, wow.

[16:03] Sheleana
And it was so synchronistic, I cannot explain how magical it was.

[16:08] Sahara
So, the gifts were all wrapped, so they didn’t know what was inside the box.

[16:10] Sheleana
They didn’t know. And it was weird because it was magical, because there were certain people in the room who hadn’t met each other, who I really wanted to connect, and they had received each other’s gifts.
There was a woman who, she had, online, the night before, been looking for a book that she wanted to buy, and then the next day, at our wedding, she picked it out of the giftbox, at the pile, at the ceremony.

[16:34] Sahara
It was waiting for her.

[16:35] Sheleana
It was just there. Ben’s mom ended up picking this coyote necklace that he had worn in ceremony for nights in prayer. And then his dad picked this Celtic carving that I had put in the center. And nobody knew whose these gifts were, so it was just like everything was being woven, everyone was connecting and it was just a really cool way for people to know each other. And now, they still remember those gifts and the people who they received them form in that story.
So, we just did little things like that, so that it wasn’t just about us, it was about all of us together, and our love.

[17:11] Sahara
That’s such a powerful, intentional practice that someone can do at, even their birthday or anything. I absolutely love that! And just being so intentional, I think so many of us, myself included, I mean, we wrote our own vows, but are we going back every single year and checking in, are we fulfilling them? No, we’re not, and I’m like, that’s a really good idea.
Sometimes I feel like we think in our heads “Oh, renewing your vows is something that happens every ten years or something”, but they’re vows, it’s an agreement, it’s a negotiation, like you said, it’s an ever-changing container.
So, let’s say you didn’t start your relationship like that, and you’re wanting to incorporate more of that, and maybe your partner’s not, like, as spiritual as you, what are ways that – you know, I feel like, especially as women, we tend to be a little bit more of the way-showers in these kind of things, what are ways that you can maybe bring up, to your partner, that you want to incorporate more of this renegotiation of the vows and checking in?

[18:11] Sheleana
I mean, one of the easiest ways is just to come to your partner with something you want to bring to the relationship and that’s something that you feel excited about contributing. A lot of times we approach these kinds of conversations with like a complaint or a criticism, and of course, you know, even I do this because it’s just kind of how it works, you know, but we have to practice being like ‘Okay, well, actually, I’m going to come to my partner with something that I want to give them” or “Something that I’ve noticed about myself that I want to work on”, and just claim it and say ‘How would you feel about sitting down and having a deeper conversation about this and maybe creating some new agreements for how we’re going to show up for each other and ourselves?” I think that’s always a great start. And you’ll be surprised, you know, when we approach things this way, a lot of people are open. There’s a lot of people who are really, you don’t have to be super spiritual in order to have healthy relationship agreements, it just might just look differently, you know.
Ben and I, when we renewed our vows last year, for last anniversary, which is almost a year ago now, we went down to a river that’s really special to us in Tobacco, and we did a prayer, and then we said our new vows out loud, after we’d done the evaluation and we had written new ones that we wanted to add and take away, and then we read them to each other, and then we prayed, and that was it, and it was just really simple. But everybody has their own way, if that doesn’t feel right for you, you can do anything, you can just, like, make a nice meal together and have a date and just chat about some of the things that you want to bring to the relationship, or some of the things that you know you want to work on, that you’re willing to own, you know. And that’s really, the thing is, we do change and we have to give ourselves and our partners permission to change and to grow. And in order to do that, we have to have a strong relationship to ourselves and we have to be sovereign and know ourselves, because our partners will trust us more when we do, and they’ll be able to, kind of, come into those spirit spaces or those spaces that maybe are a little uncomfortable for them, when they trust that we are taking responsibility for ourselves. I think that’s a pretty important one.

[20:28] Sahara
I love that! So, what do you and, your partner’s name is Ben, correct?

[20:33] Sheleana
Yeah, his name is Ben.

[20:34] Sahara
Yeah. What are your daily practices look like? How do you weave in sacredness and intention in your day? What does it look like for you guys in the morning, in the evening?

[20:43] Sheleana
We’re both so different, energy-wise. He’s a humming bird, he’s like up and out, the moment he gets up, he’s either doing yoga, working out or he’s outside chopping wood, doing yard work, because we have 10 acres, and so, there’s just always stuff to do.
I am, very slow, I’m like, make a tea, sit down, snuggle my dog, very relaxed, don’t have any very consistent ‘this is the thing that I do every single morning’. I’ve tried that, I’m not a very consistent personality, I’m just very go with the flow, whatever I feel like doing.
And one of the things that we do a lot, consistently, is walk. We walk together and we talk, we have a lot of time just in nature, hiking or walking along the ocean, or just walking along our property with our dog and just having good conversations together. It sounds so simple, and it is, because that’s one of the most sacred things you can do, is enjoy time with your partner, having conversations, being actual friends, right? It doesn’t have to look like this grand ceremonial, we bless each other with roses and everything.

[21:54] Sahara
Yeah, I was, like, waiting for the whole ritual.

[21:58] Sheleana
We have like these sacred moments and we do clearings, we clean most of the time and we will do eye-gazing and breathwork and all these things, but it’s not like every day. And it’s like, the simple things for us are the most magical. We can just be having dinner and just having a great conversation and laughing together, and I cherish that the most because real life is that, it’s like how do we find the sacred in the mundane, how do we stop seeking these highs and these really big experiences, and just be blissed out I every moment, and that has been our practice – is cultivating our deep friendship so that every moment is bliss, every moment is, and it’s never always bliss, but you know, if you’re there 80% of the time, it’s a pretty good experience to have. And that was, really, for a long time, that did involve us doing a lot of clearing rituals, a lot of processing, a lot of family systems work, a lot of tantra, a lot of shadow work, doing all the things that we needed to do to clear the path to get to where we are now where things are just very harmonious and we’re just together, enjoying life.

[23:12] Sahara
Yeah, I love you that you shared that because one thing with me and my husband Steven, is, sometimes I’ll wake up before him and he’ll sleep in because he was making music, or sometimes he’ll wake up at the crack of dawn, so I’m like, in my head sometimes I’m like “We don’t wake up at the same time and we don’t start our day with intention”, but it’s like, it’s okay, you’re human and things happen.
And I think it’s hard sometimes too when you and your partner are really living your Dharma and there’s a lot going on and you’re both very full with other areas of your life, but sometimes it can be a challenge to find those times to really connect and drop in. But it doesn’t need to be this, like, full-on ceremonial thing per say, it could just be having dinner together and turning your phones off and being really present.

[23:53] Sheleana
Yeah, totally! And I mean, life is busy and life is full, and you do have to schedule it. I remember when I was really young, in my 20s, in relationships, when I heard about scheduling sex and I was like “Oh, that’s terrible, I would never be down for that!”, I was so upset about it. And I think, now, it’s just like, of course you have to schedule it or how are you going to connect with your partner, we’re both busy, we are living our dharma, like you say, and I’m writing books and he’s running men’s groups, and he’s traveling and doing retreats, we have to put it in the calendar. And sometimes that literally looks like 40 minutes in the middle of the afternoon when we’re both going to go back to doing our thing, where we connect in the bedroom and we eye-gaze and we do a little clearing or we appreciate each other and we make love, and then we go back and do our thing, and it’s like, it’s so simple and yet it’s so challenging to break out of this idea that we need to have everything be spontaneous and really passionate and everything has to happen in this magical way or it’s not right, or it’s not love, or it’s not romantic anymore. And the truth is, the deeper we go into relationship, the longer we’re with someone, we have to get more creative, but we also have to get more content with accepting that life and love is not like in the movies, it’s really not. And it can be really beautiful to just deepen in connection with somebody who you do know really, really well, and it’s okay if you have to schedule time together, that doesn’t take away from the magic of it.

[25:32] Sahara
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you that, you know, life is life and sometimes we have these ideas – and I wanted to speak about, in the spiritual community, this idea of “My twin flame and they are everything” and all of that. But on the scheduling sex topic – see, this is something, and I’m curious your perspective is, I’ve tried scheduling sex, but something about it, for me, and it might be the feminine of like when it’s expected, it almost makes me not want to do it or get in my head of like “Oh, shit it needs to happen now but I was just working”.
So, what’s your advice, especially for us more feminine, more sensual beings, to open ourselves up when it’s on a schedule?

[26:11] Sheleana
Yeah. I know, I feel you, I’m like that too. And the truth is, sometimes we have it on the calendar and both of us are like “I’m really in flow and I’m at level 10 creative right now, I can’t drop in with you, so let’s do this later”, and that also just takes knowing yourself and both of you having the space and freedom to say that, without the other person being offended. So, we’re gotten really good at just being honest, like “Actually, I just don’t want to”, and maybe we’ll just appreciate each other and we’ll chatter, we’ll just go for a walk for 10 minutes or whatever.
But the other thing that I found is, a) when I’m really in my head I don’t think that I want to connect, but then when I do, it’s always fun. So, I’ve just learned “Okay, my partner and I, we have really great chemistry, we really enjoy ourselves when we do connect, sometimes I just have to drop in a little bit”. And so, for me, I have found, I need to be ready before him to meet. So, if we have, let’s say we’re going to have a date at 1:00PM in the afternoon, we just have an hour and we know we want to connect, we want to be intimate, I might start turning my devices off at 12:30PM, stop looking at media, I might go outside in nature, I just maybe breathe a little bit, turn on some music, have a shower, I’ll prepare myself to be more in my body. And then, we don’t just, like, get into it, we’ll touch, we’ll tickle, we’ll talk, we’ll appreciate each other, we’ll share what we love about each other, eye-gaze for a bit with music, sync our breathing, do some tantric breathwork, little things that don’t take that long, that actually help you drop in.
And so, it’s sort of like pushing through that resistance because it’s really easy to get into this rut of never feeling like it’s right because we need the perfect conditions, and sometimes we just have to create those conditions and that means taking an extra little bit of time. And then it’s still worth it, it’s like, you always feel better after you do, if you’re with the right person, you know.

[28:10] Sahara
Totally, yeah. I find having that pattern interruptive – yeah, taking a shower, going on a walk, lying down or something to get you out of your more masculine go, go, go mode, which we’re in when we’re working, to just be that bridge that you can be a little bit more receptive and open rather than going from, you know, one side of the pendulum to the other, and then like “Why am I not open and juicy and flowing?”, and it’s like, “Well, no shit, you were just, like, on twelve Zoom calls, you know!”

[28:37] Sheleana
Yeah, totally! And I mean, I think that too, here’s thing that we can do, there’s feminine practices where we can do our own yoni massage and sensual touch, but also having a partner who is connected, who can also bring their presence to help you drop in. And that’s why the eye-gazing and synced breathing can be really nice too, with a little bit of music, is, you both just get into this space where you can just, sort of, breathe out whatever was happening before and just be in that space for even five minutes with your partner, and things can kind of melt away. And so, it’s about having some of those pre-rituals that help you as well.

[29:19] Sahara
So good! So, I want to talk about this concept of a twin flame. And people talk about it a lot, you go on YouTube and the way that I’ve most heard it be described, and there’s so many different descriptions of it, is like, ‘your twin flame is your soul in another body, can be feminine, masculine, that if you find them and unite in this lifetime, it is the most insane, magnetic, love story of all time, it is real-life Romeo and Juliet!’ But not everyone’s going to meet their twin flame and it’s going to bring up the most of your shadows, so some people end up with their soulmates, which, we have multiple soulmates in our lifetime, they can be platonic or romantic, but it’s not as sparkly at love as a twin flame. So, that’s kind of how I heard it. I’m curious how you heard it and is this true?

[30:10] Sheleana
Yeah. Oh, my goodness, I love this topic! People get really mad at me when I talk about this, there’s so many caveats, if you’re like a die-hard for this concept, you’re not going to like what I have to say. But I think it’s such an important thing to discuss because it can be a trap, right?
What I have heard is that, similar to what you heard – it’s like your soul is split in two and then half goes into their body and half goes into yours and then you have to find each other, and then it’s often super chaotic and it’s a rollercoaster, but it’s because you guys are, like, meant to be, to heal together and all of these things. But I find that people really use that to stay in very toxic environments, very unsafe situations too.

[30:48] Sahara
Yeah, it sounds like trauma-bonding!

[30:50] Sheleana
It is trauma-bonding with a pretty spiritual package, right? It’s like “How can I make this spiritual?” And we do that a lot, we do it a lot, we try to package everything up, spiritually. And fair enough, if something has a spiritual meaning to you, then that’s yours. And if it’s not actually making you better in the world, if you don’t have more energy to give and to be of service to yourself and others, that’s not a sacred relationship, you know, I don’t think that’s very sacred. The reality, to me, is that I believe we are whole already, I don’t think that my soul was half and then Ben’s soul was half, and then somehow we had to find each other and blow each other’s lives up in order to become whole.
The whole idea that we are incomplete and half a person until we meet the one, is exactly why I wrote “Becoming the One”, because we have this idea that “I’m looking for my other half and I’m looking to feel whole”, which is what we all want, we all want to feel whole, even if we don’t put it in those terms, and yet we think that partnership or romantic love and validation, externally, is how to get it. And really, when we approach love from wholeness, I’m already whole, you’re already whole, let’s do this thing together, there’s a big difference in the energetics of that type of love. And the potency of that type of connection to mature whole beings who know their worth and aren’t looking to be completed, and want to be together, because together is better. And so, I don’t discount that we have soulmate bonds, we for sure do, I mean, to be honest with you, I also think, you know, your postman could be your soulmate, and because it’s not for me, a soulmate isn’t always somebody that you even have a deep karmic relationship with. Sometimes, for me, I’ve seen people who, for some reason, they’re in my bubble. All throughout my life, there’s one woman who I, she’s a twin, and I remember when I lived in a different city and I would see her checking me out at a grocery store all the time. And then, years later, many years later, I remembered her, I saw her at a festival in a completely, way different part of the world, and then when I moved to this little island, I started seeing her again and I’m like “Oh, you’re in my soul cluster, you’re probably a person who, my soul knew at one point in…”, that’s how I see it. I think our pets are our soulmates too.
And so, for me, it’s almost like taking the magic away a little bit…

[33:42] Sahara
Right when you said pets are your soul cluster, your dog was “Hell, yeah, I am!”

[33:48] Sheleana
Bodie! Yeah, so, for me, it’s like, not diluting the magic, but almost taking the power away from this idea that there’s one person out there who can complete us. Because I think when we have that belief, that there’s just one person out there, well, that’s a pretty scary thought then, if the relationship isn’t healthy or if we’re chasing them and they’re not making themselves available, but we have this idea that they’re the one, and there’s only one person out there, then we’re not in the seat of our power, we’re not really choosing from worth, we’re choosing from lack, we’re choosing from scarcity and fear.
And so, I just don’t like any spiritual concept that limits us to a) not being whole in ourselves – like, I believe we’re born whole and worthy, we’re not born broken. So, for me, it just feels like a way for us to sort of hide, hide out. And so, I choose not to take on the whole twin flame thing.
Ultimately, we all have to decide what feels right for us and what we believe to be true, but I would just caution anyone who’s in this really turbulent or rollercoaster-like relationship, who’s saying “Oh, well, I have to stay in this because it’s my twin flame and we have a soul contract”. You know what, sometimes the growth isn’t actually learning to claim ourselves, and just say “No, this isn’t right for me”, you know.
And I’ve heard people say like “Oh, well, if I don’t complete it with this life, I’m going to have to do it with them in the next life”, I’m like “Well, how much are you willing to tolerate to believe that?”

[35:27] Sahara
Yeah, it’s like, why would your soul choose pain? And I think there’s different types of pain, there’s the pain of healing and it genuinely being a mirror for you, and maybe there are shadow aspects of yourselves that are coming out, and this relationship container is actually really serving you, if you can move through it, like you shared with you and Ben, that you’ve experienced. But then there’s also just like tumultuous pain, drama, conflict, cheating, abuse and things like that. And also too, just like, some people are just not the right fit for you, that you’re just trying to make it work no matter what and you might have this idea of “Well, no one else is going to love me like they will, so I need to make this work”, but the truth is, I believe, that there are many different who we can romantically be in this lifetime, we’re just making the choice to be with this specific person.

[36:23] Sheleana
Absolutely. And I always challenge people, too, when they’re in those types of relationships, because we often tend to romanticize what we don’t fully have, or something, once we’ve lost it. And so, I always challenge you to ask “How good is it really? Do they really love you? Do you really feel loved? What do you love about your relationship?”, because when we’re in these dynamics where we’re chasing unavailable love, when we’re pursuing someone who isn’t fully in with us, when it’s constantly, you know, highs and lows and unstable, and fighting, and emotionally unsafe. We might say that we’ll never find someone with this type of love again, but what we’re really saying is that “I’m high on these highs and lows and that this is becoming a bit like a drug for me, and I’m a bit addicted to this feeling”. And it does take practice and takes time and nervous system work to rewire that, to feel the safety and security of harmonious love and not interpret it as boring, and to actually know what it feels like in cells, to stay, right? Like, what does it feel like to stay in a healthy, loving relationship? I had to move through that when I was engaged, I was feeling like, all sorts of activation in my body, I could feel my cells reorienting. I remember walking with Ben and being like “This is intense for me because my whole life, my pattern has been to run”, always, since childhood. I’ve been on the run since I was born, literally. My mom was on the run with me the moment we left the hospital, and that was always how I dealt with any type of conflict or discomfort, is, I would just run, I would run away.
And so, here I am, in this amazing relationship, and now I’m staying and I’m past that point where I’ve never been in a relationship for this long, and my cells are going “What’s happening, we don’t stay this long, this is when we go”, and I’m like “No, we’re doing something different this time, like, we’re reorienting this pattern”. And it took about two years of, sometimes I could just, it was like my whole body was trying to go this way, and I was like “No, we’re going this way”, and I just had to be with it, there was nothing I could do, I just spoke to it when it was happening, I reminded my body that “No, we’re doing something different this time and it’s actually okay, we’re safe now”. I shared that with my partner, but I think a lot of us are running on these patterns where we are just so used to uprooting and changing and chaos, that, as soon as things stabilize, we feel like the love is gone, and we think there’s something wrong because we’re not feeling the honeymoon phase anymore and then it blows up. But honeymoon phase isn’t meant to last, it’s not, and it’s not even the best part of relationship, but it can take years to get to the best part, and some of us don’t have the tools or the resources of the language to navigate through, to actually get there.
And so, that’s part of what I love doing with people, is giving them those resources and those tools and helping them find that language within themselves so that they have the opportunity to experience true, authentic love, not just with others, but with themselves.

[39:45] Sahara
So powerful to look at those patterns from our childhood, of how we coped with conflict, what our relationships with our parent figures were, what their relationship was like and how we can be, subconsciously, recreating them. And I know you’ve done a lot of work around this, around ancestral healing, the mother wound, and I remember hearing you say that you’ve actually done some sort of role-playing work where Ben was depicting your father and you were depicting his mother. Can you share a little bit more about this practice?

[40:15] Sheleana
Yeah. When we first started dating, we started doing these tantra and alchemy trainings together, and there was this practice where you would basically sit across from your partner and your partner would hold space as one of your parents. So, he would hold space as my father and I would sit and look at him and say “Something that I want you to know is, I’m angry at you because, and something that I see in you that I see in me is…”
Now, the interesting this is, I’ve never met my father, I only know him and what I know of him is not very good. And yet, I had more than enough to say to him, and a lot of good things actually. I had projected a fantasy of who he was and the best traits of his that were in me and all of these things. And then, you know, we did the same thing for his mother, and then we switched and did, you know, mother and father for each other, again, so we did both parents. And the beautiful thing about doing that practice is, not only do you get to see inside of your partner’s mind and what their inner child experienced growing up, but you also get to see the areas in which they felt undernourished, spiritually, emotionally, physically. And you can really begin to see where the conflicts that happened in your relationship actually stem from, and it brings this deep compassion because, like, when he would see my inner child talking about the ways that I had felt unloved or unappreciated or abandoned, literally and physically, he would just tear up and it would make him want to move through some of his blocks around showing up when we’re in conflict, you know. It would make him want to be there more because he was like “I don’t want to be another story like that for you, I want to help you heal it”. And I would see some of the ways where he didn’t feel seen, or he felt criticized, and it makes me want to work on that, not be so critical or to change the way that I just express things to him, you know, to try to show him that he is appreciated and loved every day.
And so, we bring so much of our familial relationships into our romantic partnerships, whether we realize it or not. And if we have these unfinished relationships, unhealed relationships with our parents, we will bring that hurt and that incomplete feeling to our partner. And then, knowingly, we will expect them to heal it for us, whether we realize this or not.
I write in my book about, a few times when I was sitting in front of Ben, giving him this lecture, when we’re having a clearing, and then stop myself half way through and being like “Oh my gosh, everything I just said, I could’ve said to my mom”, you know, it’s like some of these things are very ancient, they’re old in us and we need to make space for that hurt to be heard, without it having to be misplaced, without having to, like, project it onto our partners. So, sharing about your childhoods, sharing about what your relationships were like with your parents, it only makes your bond stronger, if you have the capacity to hold space for each other in that.

[43:22] Sahara
So powerful! And it just gives you so much compassion, because then you can see – and it’s interesting, too, because I think we do attract, often, the people who do reflect those, those childhood wounds for whatever subconscious way, so knowing “Am I going into that lecturing that he was so hated when he was a kid”, but that’s how his mom only knew how to show love, by lecturing him, or “Am I going into my detached, unemotional man-cave”, and that’s perpetuating the father, or “Am I getting very angry”, which is triggering that inner child.
Like, my father was very angry, so I get very sensitive if my husband gets angry, I actually just shut down because that’s my inner child of, I don’t know how to handle this.
For him, his mom didn’t understand him, so when I’m like “I don’t like this” or “I don’t like that you’re doing that”, or disapproving of his way of life, that’s like his mother disapproving of his way of life. So, we only will know about these things if we communicate.

[44:20] Sheleana
Yeah, exactly! And it’s so uncanny how we always will attract a partner who does mirror many aspects of our parents, both our favorite things and our worst things. We went to Esalen Institute a few years ago, we did the ‘Getting The Love You Want’ workshop with Harvil Hendrix and Helen Le Kelly Hunt, and you probably know the book, you probably know of them, and anyways, we’ve been doing this work for our whole relationship, so we know ourselves and each other pretty well, but we did the Remaga work process and we learned something new.
Like, they took us through this process where you write down favorite memories that you have, of your parent, and the most hurtful memories, and the things that you loved, the things that you really enjoyed, and the things that you didn’t, and the things that you didn’t get. And for both of us, it was an exact mirror of our childhood, the exact things that I was so drawn to in him, were my favorite characteristics about my mother. And the things that we struggled with most, which, for us, was emotional presence, the exact thing I didn’t get from her. And vice versa, so, his worst was, he felt criticized a lot. And I do criticize, you know, and so I have to be careful with that because I’m just, I can see everything so clearly, so sometimes I’ll just say things, that don’t need to be said.

[45:44] Sahara
Projector life!

[45:46] Sheleana
Yeah, projector life, you know how it is, right? So, it’s like “Oh, I can see this clearly” or “I can see this thing”, but I don’t actually need to say it, and if I am going to say it, it’s softly, but also, is it really necessary because he’s got to figure that out for himself. And so, I have to work on that, and I’m still working on it, I’ll probably be working on it for the rest of my life.
But it’s just interesting when you start to see like “Oh, wow, I’m just perpetuating that”. So, when I catch myself being critical or he calls me out, he’s like “Oh, criticism”, I’m like “Yeah, oops”, I get to soften and see his little boy and be like “Argh, I don’t want to do that to him, I love this man, I want him to feel like the king when he’s around me. I want him to feel loved and appreciated”. And, like, we know when we feel appreciated, we want to give more of ourselves, right? And so, it’s like this fuel that we bring to the relationship, when we appreciate and love our partners.
And so, the deeper that we go into knowing our own childhood wounds and our own limitations, and our own fears, and our own needs, the more we can ask for what we need, the more we can recognize when something is happening in our relationship that’s actually touching on an old wound and our partner isn’t actually the enemy, because we can make our partners our enemy really quickly, we see this in break-ups all the time. It’s like everybody’s ex is a narcissist now, like, that’s the thing, and it’s like “Well, is that the case or did you guys trigger each other’s childhood wounds and you’re both feeling the weight of that?”
And so, it’s just so beautiful to get to know ourselves on that intimate level and then to find somebody who we can share that with in a safe way, you know, where we can go deeper together.

[47:32] Sahara
Oh yes, everything you said! And I’m curious, I feel like, maybe, this is a feminine/masculine thing because I feel like my shadow is also being judgmental, critical, telling him what to do, and his is the emotional detachment. Do you feel this is an overall feminine vs. masculine shadow aspect?

[47:53] Sheleana
Yeah. I mean, I think that, generally speaking, without blanket-statemening people, I’d say 80% of the time it’s a more masculine-oriented being who experiences avoidance, though I do experience masculine beings who are really anxious in their relationships as well. And as feminine beings, I do think that it’s both the light and the shadow. Again, I think that there’s a way to bring it as medicine, and there’s a way to bring it as just, like, our lower selves. Because, I believe, as matriarchs in our homes and our households, we’re here to challenge our partners. Like, I know that men love a challenge, they want to sharpen their sword, and if we’re in our empowered queen, our empowered mother, wise women, we aren’t going to take shit, we are going to call it out. But it’s how we do that that can either inspire them to show up more, or it can just cause them to move away and retract. And of course, there are some partnerships where you can’t really bring anything because there’s not that much emotional maturity, there’s not that willingness. There’s plenty of people who seek out partners who won’t challenge them because they don’t want to be challenged, they’re like “I don’t want to grow so I’m just going to choose this person who isn’t in themselves yet”.
But my work is to help people really be in themselves, so you can be, like, in the driver’s seat, both of you. And so, yeah, I do think that that’s the thing because it’s in our nature to chip away and look for the pearl, and it can be destructive if we’re not mindful with it.

[49:32] Sahara
And I feel like one of the shadows I often see in relationships are the masculine being, or the man, often, will be in a relationship with someone and then choose someone that doesn’t challenge them. So, choose, like, just that old story of the secretary or, you know, the young innocent girl who he can lie to and manipulate. And then, I think a lot of women have the story of “I’m too strong of a woman, that men don’t like me because I know what I want and they want someone who they can manipulate and boss around”. So, what do you have to say for someone who feels like “Maybe I’m too strong, I’m too successful, I’m too much, men don’t want to handle me?”

[50:15] Sheleana
I think that, you know, in some cases, we are always – everyone’s going to encounter people like that. And I have the pleasure of having a husband who works with men, day in and day out, so I know the secret, that there’s a lot of men doing the work, and there’s a lot of men who are actually on the other side, complaining about the same things, that they can’t find a partner who wants to do the work with them or that their partner isn’t needing them, spiritually or emotionally.
I’m blessed to be in this space of seeing men’s work happen and unfold in front of my eyes all the time, and having 10 men come to my home for the weekend to help with the land, that are all close friends with Ben and I, and for them to just come in and sit at the table with me and just share their hearts.
And so, I know that this is a universal human problem, and it’s not like men aren’t doing the work and women are too powerful. I do notice, that this happens for all of us sometimes, we all have to find a person who’s willing to meet us where we’re at. And one of the things that I have noticed with people who have that story, is that sometimes they come on really intensely, and they’re actually not willing to look at any of the ways where they may be repelling people by being, like, really, like, you know “You have to take all of me and, like, I’m going to force-feed you with my opinions and my ideas, and my beliefs”, and there’s this energy of almost like overpowering the environment. And it’s like, well, we have to make space for both people. When we come into a dynamic where we already believe that we’re too much, that’s actually an egoic fear, that’s a shadow fear, nobody’s too much or not enough, right? That’s just the ego.
So, regardless of if it’s too much or not enough, that’s not your highest self, that’s not love, right? And so, it’s like “Okay, well, if I were to not trying to prove myself right now, who would I be? If I weren’t trying to be this, like, empowered boss babe, you know, I make 7 figures and I take on the world and my external achievements and status are who I am, how would I show up if none of that mattered?” And the truth is that it doesn’t, right? So it’s like, how can we just drop in with people and just be human again, because even those are like, these are these walls and we use these stories to defend. So, sometimes when we make other people the problem for why we can’t connect, we’re actually just, we are a little afraid of intimacy and we’re not really saying that because we don’t even know it, right? And I’ve been one of those people, so I know this well, because I have all sorts of strategies for defending myself and not showing up in my heart, that was my name M.O. for many years.
So, I always just say take a look at where are you hiding, where are you protecting, where are you defending and where are you over-identifying with something that’s not the truth of your heart?

[53:14] Sahara
Totally! And I think it really uses a protection mechanism that somewhere in your life, you learned that “If I don’t have me, then no one else will”, which, there’s an element of truth to that and empowerment to that, but then there’s that element of “So, no man or no person will be able to keep up with me because I’m just too much and too great”, and whatever the story is, and it’s like, do you want that to continue to be your story?
And I see a lot of people out there, men especially, who want to have that challenge, like you said, they want to have someone they can really talk to, maybe even build a business with, whatever that looks like, maybe it’s just changing the type of person that you’re hanging around, that if you’re hanging around the same people who you’ve known since college and you kind of know what they’re up to, you know that category. But there are different types of men, like you said, those doing the men’s work, who want a woman who’s empowered and living her Dharma, and inspirational.
With my husband, I met him, I had no money, I was like a blogger and he’s kind of seen me build this, you know, massive career and all these things, and I’ve asked him, I’m like “Does it ever intimidate you or do you ever miss the old me that didn’t have, you know?”, he’s like “No, why would I miss that?”, he’s like “You’re in your power, you’re inspiring”, he’s like “I love it, it inspires me!” So, it’s like, people like that do exist, it’s just, are we finding them?

[54:36] Sheleana
Yeah, exactly. And that’s why qualifying is so important, right? In my book I talk a lot about core values – what is it that you value? And so, when we’re qualifying and choosing people to spend time with, or to date, based on core values, it becomes very clear, very quickly, whether or not this is somebody we want to explore with. And so, it’s again, it always comes back to how well we actually know ourselves. We can be really successful in the material world and not really have a clue who we actually are, right?
And so, then, I see a lot of people who are very successful. I have friends who, they make like $500 million a year and they want a relationship, but they cannot seem to make relationships work. And there’s success in the material world and then there’s really anchoring in into our hearts, and it has to be its own journey. The other stuff is kind of irrelevant, it doesn’t really matter, like, who are you and what do you want, and what makes you feel at home and alive, and safe, and energized? Those are the things that we want to consider when we’re looking for a partner, and when we’re qualifying them to spend more time together.
And so, I just think, the deeper we go, the more we realize we can’t take any of the material stuff with us, you know, it doesn’t make us who we are, and at the end of the day, relationships matter more than anything.
And one of the things that I like to bring up is, I don’t know if you have ever seen some of the medium shows, medium shows on Netflix like Tyler Henry?

[56:10] Sahara
Yes! I watched that recently, for the first time!

[56:14] Sheleana
Yeah. So, I loved that! I loved that documentary, he’s such a sweetheart (Tyler Henry, this medium), if you haven’t seen it yet, you should check it out.
But one of the things that struck me, and this is something that I have noticed as a pattern over the last decade of exploring past lives and near-death experiences, and things like that, when have you ever seen a medium channel somebody from the spirit world, and then the first thing that they do is talk about what they regret in their business, or that they wish that they had done something differently with their investments?

[56:45] Sahara
Should’ve done a different launch strategy!

[56:47] Sheleana
I should’ve bought more Bitcoin! It’s like, that never happens, ever! What do people, what do they channel through? Always relationships! Every single time! So, what does that tell you about what matters? Like, what do our souls take with us? The only thing they take with us is our relational experiences and the lessons we learn in love, that’s it! So, like, we’ve got just do this thing, you know!

[57:13] Sahara
We’ve got to prioritize it more. And I think, honestly speaking, it’s like, people have just been so let down by love, that it feels like this thing that’s just out of your control, that you’re like “I don’t want to invest my time into it because I don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but I know if I invest my time into my career or my business, or something else, I know I’m going to get a reward there”, and then you have that feeling of control, right? That feeling of “My energy is going to lead to a result”, whereas with the relationship, I think especially as the feminine, there’s this deep-seated fear of “What if I’m abandoned one day?”

[57:47] Sheleana
Yeah, totally! And that’s what I mean by, I see people who, you know, they’re so successful (materially) and yet they want a partnership, but they struggle and it’s partially that fear of prioritizing relationship over those other things. And it doesn’t mean that you have to push it out to the way-side and, you know, your business needs to crumble, you can actually make more money when you’re in a happy relationship, and be healthier than when you’re not, that’s proven. If you’re in a healthy, happy relationship, you actually have a healthier body, you know, you’re happier.
And I know, both my husband and I, have sky-rocketed since we got together because we make each other better, we feel safer, we feel more free, we feel more appreciated, we feel more in our power.
And so, it is one of those things where we just have to realize, you know, nothing in life is certain, you might get hurt, and you probably will, many times. Relationships are hard work sometimes and we get triggered and our wounds come up, and it’s worth it, and it’s not just about romantic relationship either, it’s also about deep connections with friends and community, like we talked about in the very beginning of this Podcast, which is, are we prioritizing connection, not just with the romantic partner, because none of us can control when that person enters or leaves our lives, right?
You can find the person of your dreams and it can be literally perfect. Like, I think my marriage is as perfect as I could get for myself, it’s not perfect, it never will be, but it’s perfect for me. I cannot imagine being with anyone else, and I have no idea when it’s going to end, because even if we choose to stay together for the rest of our lives, one of us could die, and that sounds terrible, but it’s the truth, we don’t get to control life and we don’t get to control love. And so, it’s like, we’re always taking a leap into the unknown.
And so, practicing with friends is such a beautiful way to feel that connection. You know, some of us do have a different karmic life path, where we’re not in partnership for 10 years or 20 years of our lives, we’re single, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be experiencing deep authentic connections, it’s just going to look differently.
And so, it’s where are we cultivating this richness of love and feeling seen and heard in all ways. And sometimes that means we practice conscious relationship with our friends.

[1:00:17] Sahara
Yeah, and I think, too, just because a relationship didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it’s a failure, or a friendship as well. And I see a lot of times, what happens is, you think of the relationship just in the way that it ended. So, maybe you had a beautiful relationship for 4 years but it ended really badly, so you’re like “That was a mistake”, that person, you always think negatively of that person, rather than thinking of all of the beautiful lessons that you learned from each other, the ways that you did love each other.
And I feel like there is just such a huge healing and clearing that happens when you forgive that person, forgive yourself, and can look back on all of your relationships from a place of love.

[1:00:55] Sheleana
Totally! We always have a path, right? It’s, you can end a relationship and you can become bitter and you can let that experience harden you and be the story that, you know, love isn’t safe and everything is always going to end badly and you can never trust again. And you might need to be in that before you’re ready to move through it, and that’s okay, but you can’t stay there forever, you could but I don’t recommend it.
And the other path is to find the medicine that was there for you in that ending; to find the medicine that was there for you when you stayed too long; to find the medicine that was there for you when you finally did end it, or when you got betrayed, what it brought up for you. And you know, there’s just always medicine to be had when we are willing to sit in the grief and sit in the fire of the pain and let it alchemize in us.
And I found that even in my deepest moments of heartbreak and betrayal, where there were many reasons why I could be totally angry at the world forever, I met new parts of myself, and I also saw the aspects of my own shadow that were perpetuating that pattern. I wasn’t taking responsibility for another person’s negative actions towards me, but I was seeing where I was at and what I had been conditioned for, was just perpetuating these types of relationships. And so, I’m grateful for those people who gave me an opportunity to look deeper at what I was clearing, and to actually clear it, because I believe that nothing happens by mistake, in relationship. If we stay with someone for 5 years, that we never even really wanted to be with that much, but we just stayed anyways, there’s usually a reason. Like, if we look back, we’re like “Well, if I hadn’t of stayed, I wouldn’t have learned this thing or that thing, or got this experience”, and there’s just always something there for us.

[1:02:44] Sahara
Yes! Sometimes I look back on my life and, like, different romantic partners were what drew me to places that I needed to go, and opened you up to, even, certain experiences that you wouldn’t have had. And sometimes it’s like, Universe knows that a romantic partner is the thing – let’s say your soul really needed to move to Hawaii, so you met someone on your vacation to Hawaii and then you moved to Hawaii and then the relationship ended, but it wasn’t about the relationship, it was about you moving to Hawaii. And sometimes, looking back on where did those relationships take me, what did they open up to, what was that pathway like, and you realize, it was like the perfect pawn to get you there.

[1:03:23] Sheleana
Totally! That’s how I met Ben, because he actually moved, originally, to a different city, that’s just like an hour away from where we met. He moved there for another person, years before we met, and she broke up with him before he even arrived, and then he came for a job, he lost that job. So, he moved there for a job and a person, and neither worked out, but he was like “I just needed something to get me there”, and he knew that right in that moment too. And then he ended up moving to the city nearby and then we met, a couple of years later, and he had literally said “I need to move”, he was living in Alberta, and he was like “I need to move to meet my wife”, who knows who he thought that might be, right?
And so, it is true that, you know, when I look back at every single experience I had, especially when we’ve been really hurt and we’re like “Oh, I wish I didn’t do that” or “I wish I hadn’t experienced that”, but if you look at all of the synchronicities and all of the things that happened, if that didn’t happen, your whole life would be completely different. So, it’s almost like we have to recalibrate and say “Okay, well, this is how it ended and this is how it worked out, and this is what led me here, and now I have this awareness, I’m awake now, and now I can actually create something different”.
And so, it’s, even sometimes, those really deep heartbreaks or those moments where we do feel like “Oh my gosh, maybe I’m going to turn bitter here and just never love again”, those are those deep catalysts, those opportunities to wake up and to change our lives.

[1:04:51] Sahara
So true, because there’s nothing like romantic love to really compel you to make major shifts in your life that maybe nothing else ever would, but that person is there for a reason. And again, it’s not because of that person, I mean, for me, I literally was in India for so long, dating someone in India, and I realize now it was not about that person, it was, I needed to move to India because I had such a huge soul contract of living there, that that was the perfect pawn to get me to India, then we broke up and I stayed in India, you know. So, it’s that perfect thing.
And another interesting thing, I was talking to my husband recently, is almost like our souls, kind of know, maybe, who our idea soul partner could be and you’re looking for traces of that person in different people.

[1:05:36] Sheleana
Yeah.

[1:05:37] Sahara
So, he was sharing how his exes had very similar name to my last name, but in different forms. Like, three different ones were like, just different variations of my last name (Kitabi), but one, she had like a ‘Kita’, one was like a ‘Katab’, so it was like his soul knew something about that combination, like, Kitabi is, you’re meant to meet this person. And for me, it’s always been like Lebanese DJs, that’s my type, so it’s like my soul knew I needed to find someone of that, and that’s now what my husband is. So, maybe our souls just, like, remember little glimpses, little clues before this lifetime.

[1:06:19] Sheleana
Yeah. I believe that. I mean, here’s an interesting story for you. So, I was married in my early 20s and I went through a divorce, and that story is in my book, and basically, that was the catalyst for everything that has happened since and where I am now. And without that, I wouldn’t be in such an amazing marriage. But at that time, I lost my business, I was betrayed by my partner and my health crashed, everything was not going well and then I was like “Well, at least I have my soul kitty”, I may not be able to make a romantic relationship work, but I’m going to have this cat forever, until she’s old and dies, this is my last thing that I can hold on to!” Well, within a week, she disappeared, she was taken by coyotes. So, everything was stripped way. If you’re familiar with the Nakshatras and Goddess Nirrti, from Mulla Nakshatra, Nirrti is like, just burned everything down, but it’s not coming back, it’s not like Kali, where there’s going to be a rebirth, this is done! And so, I was stripped bare, there was nothing left to hold onto and I was like “Shit, that was like my last thing that I had to hold onto”, and then I remember saying to a friend that week, I said “I know this is going to sound strange, but I just have this feeling that the partner that I’m meant to meet is allergic to cats and that’s why she’s gone”. And many, many months later, I met Ben and the first time he came over to my house with some friends, I was in the other room and I heard him sneeze, and he asked someone, he asked one of our friends “Is there a cat in this house?”, because he’s allergic, but I didn’t know that. And I remember standing in the other room and my whole body, I was just like “That’s him, he’s here, this is the guy!” And it was just so funny because on some soul level, I felt like that deep pain and that deep clearing that was happing through all that loss was actually preparing me. So, you know, sometimes we know.

[1:08:19] Sahara
So powerful! Yes, it’s just this inner knowing and I love how, eve, through horrible loss, it’s also, in a way, a clearing and opening for something new.
So, thank you for sharing that and all of your amazing wisdom today! So, where can people get your new book “Becoming the One”?

[1:08:37] Sheleana
Yay, I’m so excited about this book! It is at risingwoman.com/btobook (“Becoming the One” book), and you can pre-order it, it’s available June 14, it’ll be ready on store shelves and you can pretty much get it at, I think, all book stores, and of course on Amazon and some other online retailers which you can find through that link.
So, I’m very excited for you to read that book and I hope that you find medicine in some of the stories that I shared.

[1:09:09] Sahara
Well, thank you so much for sharing your heart, your vulnerability and all of your wisdom. Just following your Instagram, you offer so much value there, so thank you for putting it together in this beautiful book that we can really hold onto and continue to read and take notes upon and maybe gift to someone else as well.

[1:09:27] Sheleana
Absolutely! Thank you so much for having me on!

[1:09:29] End of Interview
______________________________________________________________

[1:09:29] Sahara
How rich and juicy was that conversation with Sheleana! I absolutely love diving into relationships, they truly are portals for our greatest transformation. And with care, and watering the plant, as anything else in life, they can blossom into beautiful flowers!

[1:09:49] Sahara
So, thank you so much for tuning in and dropping in today! If you’re wanting to dive deeper into your divine feminine wisdom, head over to rosegoldgoddesses.com. This is my membership community and we have so many workshops and practices including Opening to Channel, The Arts of the Divine Feminine, and so much more. Again, that link is rosegoldgoddesses.com and you can find that link in the show notes.

Thank you so much for being here today, and I’ll see you in the next one! Namaste!

Episode 440: How To Have An Amazing, Deep + Sacred Relationship with Sheleana of
Rising
By Sahara Rose