Breaking Patterns and Finding Freedom with Dr. Stephen Paul Edwards

Good day, everyone. Welcome back to Powerful and Unpolished. I'm Tim Salmons. I'm your host. If you haven't heard that a thousand times, here it is again. Uh, I am here with a very special guest, actually, for me. I'm actually looking forward to learning more about Dr. Steven Paul Edwards. And, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw you a, a question here in a second, Steven, but I wanna give everybody a little bit of background and, uh, of Steven and why I'm looking forward to this meeting.

Um, having learned a little bit about this gentleman, uh, w- I was excited to have him on the show. And so here we are. We've got the show going, and I'm gonna say Steven is the author of The Venus Fly Trap: Sex, Lies and Repercussions, a raw and provocative memoir that explores the psychology of intense romantic relationships, emotional manipulation, and the fine line between passion and self-destruction.

Kind of the human experience there, right? Um, Steven shares, uh, shares lessons learned from one of the most tumultuous relationships of his life while exploring broader themes around that of love, trauma, and personal growth. I just wanna thank you very much for showing up and being here with us today, Steven.

Thank you for joining us. Well, it's my pleasure. I'm excited. Uh, like you, you know, we've both done our due diligence before coming here, and, uh, there's a lot of alignment that I can see and, uh, a, a lot of things that I think we'll see. But I hope the audience is gonna get a lot out of it and have some fun along the way, right?

Yeah. Well, I think as long as we're having some fun, th- they should be able to enjoy it. Yeah. And I said to Steven right before this, as long as this tickles your possibility, right? So we wa- we want, we want it to be entertaining, but we also, uh, you know, from listening to past podcasts, if you have listened to past podcasts, this is one where it's like we also like to dig into the deep areas.

We like to explore what is possible in the human connection. With Steven having his background... Let me ask you this, Steven. So you're, y- you have it in your book, but tell us a little bit about your background so that, you know, our listeners have an idea of kinda what you bring and who you are. All right.

Well, it's a bit of a mishmash, right? So I was born in England. I grew up in England. Uh, had a, you know, a traumatic childhood like, like we all did, right? But we, you know, we don't necessarily know it until later on because we think we're the only ones going through anything like that, right? So, you know, uh, it was, uh, it, it was...

You know, so an environment where, you know, you don't feel loved and you just wanna get out of the house and, uh, you know, I wanted-- all I wanted to do was run away from home, and I did. I ran away from home eight times, but they kept catching me and bringing me back. Anyway, I also had, uh, trauma at school, um, being humiliated, those kind of things.

So, you know, there's a famous pastor that once said, you know, "Give me your son until they're seven years old, and I'll show you the man." So there you go, right? So there's a lot of twisted things that happened to me when I was a kid. I was, uh, uh, I was, uh, uh, in a mental, mental institution when I was 16, uh, and so on and so forth.

So I had a, a lot of challenges to overcome, but, you know, I believe we choose them, you know, unconsciously maybe before we came here, right? So... And I- I've adopted a belief, so I'm not, you know, trying to be a victim because I know that's useless. I've adopted a, a belief some time ago that nothing happens to us, that everything happens for us.

Easy thing to say, different thing to live in your life because, you know, it's easy when things are going great, but things are going wrong and it's somebody else's fault, right? So recognizing that we draw all this into our lives. Well, this pattern that I had running away was running away from myself really, right?

I wasn't really running away from a physical home. I was running away from my home, which is me. Took me a long time to figure that out. Uh, but unfortunately, wherever you go, there you are. So what I kept doing is I kept thinking this was gonna be the place, this was gonna be the thing, this was gonna be the person that was gonna fulfill me, and as we know, that's never gonna happen, right?

So I kept building things up. I'd create success, and then I'd go, "Yeah, this is not it." So I'd just destroy it, right? I would just let it literally destroy and then rebirth myself. So I was going through this constant process of- Building a part of my life, uh, and then destroying it and starting anew. Now, I didn't know it back then, but what I was really doing was slowly but surely remembering who I really am, right?

Um, and that's a powerful way to do it. I'm not gonna say I did that intentionally with this, "Well, this is my, this is my way to, you know, spiritual, uh, enlightenment," or any of that stuff. Uh, and, and I'm not saying I'm spiritually enlightened, by the way. I'm just saying that these were things that I did.

And so this experience that I finally came to... You know, and I, my background is I was in personal development for 30 years, uh, spiritual counseling. Got a PhD in spiritual counseling for 20 years. I worked with people like Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, uh, Robert Kiyosaki, all these people that were great mentors to me, that taught me a tremendous amount, that were preparing me for or gonna try and prepare me for what happened next, right?

So every time these things would happen, Tim, I would burn out, right? Because I'm a very intense guy. So I get into something, I pour myself into it. You know, what do people say? 300%, if there is m- was such a thing, right? But I pour myself in it. I get intense, and then I burn out, and I go, "Phew, I'm done with that, you know?

I, I can't... I don't wanna go back to it again." I've almost, like, overdone it, right? And so when I got into this relationship, I was in that place where I just wanted to... Uh, I'd had enough of what I was doing, you know, doing the, uh, just the spiritual counseling and doing the, um, personal development stuff. I was tired, you know?

I was spending four days of the week on the road doing different events all over the country and the world, and I just was so tired. And so, uh, and, and that, when that happens, you know you're in for a rebirth experience, right? I, I, I'm not saying I knew that at the time, but obviously looking back, I was ready for this...

Well, it was time for me to have this experience. I'm not gonna say I was ready for it, because obviously it was extremely toxic. Uh, you know, when I tell the story, it's kinda humiliating because people say, "All this background you have in personal development and spiritual counseling, how could you let that happen?"

You know? That's ridiculous. And it's true. I wanna jump in here. I wanna add to what, to what you just shared there, is, um, a lot of people act like that because you, you know something you should know better, and it's, it's, you know, as you are with myself, we talk about pattern awareness, and people who, these are the patterns from the past.

But it's also the fact of just because you have information added or an awakening doesn't mean the pattern's gonna change. Right, or, yeah, or that you've identified all the patterns. Because there are so many, right? Um, and so, uh, yes, I did some stupid things. Yes, there were red flags that were telling me it was gonna be challenging, difficult, toxic, whatever.

But, but sometimes that's what draws us in even more, right? 'Cause you know it's dangerous, right? But anyway, um, and but what, what she was and what she represented to me, uh... Now, I didn't get this at the beginning. I'm not saying I knew that right from the start, but she represented to me a master teacher in my life.

She came into my... There was no a- there's no accidents. There's no coincidences. She was the perfect person to give me the lessons and the awareness of my mirrors that I need to look at about myself, not her, right? Um, so I could have that transformation that occurred as a result of this experience and this relationship.

So I'm eternally grateful for her, to her for that, uh, and the gift she gave me. And then I said, you know, I've worked with some pretty, pretty intense luminaries, you know, Tony Robbins, Dean, who- you name it, right? So but what I learned from them was profound, but what I learned from this experience was the biggest lesson I've ever had.

So I'm very grateful to her. She was sort of like the catalyst, obviously, that helped you into this lesson. What was the biggest lesson for you? What was it that you learned? Well, there's many, many things, right? So it's layered. But the greatest gift she gave me was my freedom. What do I mean? Well, what she helped me do was look at the dark side of my nature, right?

And be able to talk about it, because one of the beautiful things about her was she was authentic, man. I mean, she was not making any excuses for who she was, right? And it was like, "You either take me or leave me," which is how we all wanna be. We all wanna be our authentic self in the presence of others, regardless of how they see us, right?

So writing this book caused me to write about things that I've never told anybody. And then you put it in a book? Yeah. Because what I realized is that those things that I hadn't told other people, why hadn't I? Because I was afraid people would find out about them, right? And if those people found out about them, it might cost me my marriage, my relationship with my friends, my family, and so I was hiding them.

But when you hide that stuff, what you're doing is you're creating a wall around you that creates a prison, and you're always f- in fear of it coming out, so you're never free. So when I wrote this book and I poured all that stuff out there, people are like, "What are you telling everybody this for?" Well, pa- it's part of the story, right?

It's part of my life, right? And it's part of what made me do the things that I did and had the patterns that I had that I needed to heal. And one of the ways that you heal is through vulnerability, right? Putting yourself out there, speaking your truth. How can you be your authentic tr- your authentic self if you can't be vulnerable?

You have to be, right? And you have to put that out there. And so I did. And then was it easy? No. Um, you see, well, it was just a s- it's just part of my life, but it still, it was still, for me, uh, you know, it's just, I, it's a story I had, but what I feel good about myself for doing is having the courage to speak it out loud.

And the irony, by facing that fear, Tim, on the other side was my freedom On the other side was my ability to be authentic, and that's the greatest gift she could have given me, right? Going back and highlighting, 'cause I, I really wanna highlight this for the listeners, is, um, we have our human patterns, we have our human behaviors, a- and those patterns give us the illusion of keeping us safe.

They give us the illusion of control, which is really a fallacy. It's- it cracks me up how much our egos want and fight for control and just get in the way, right? And like what you're talking about is when you get into that vulnerability and you get into that awakening after you've had so many years of education, insight, experience, right, wisdom, all this kind of stuff, I, I, I, I always say this, I say this to the mentors I work with, I say this to colleagues I work with, I say this to virtually anybody: If you're still on this planet and you're still breathing air, yes, you may have learned a bunch of lessons, but you still have more ahead of you, right?

'Cause you're not done. 100%, yeah. And, and I say that to people. I say, "Listen, I went through a profound experience, went through a transformation, but I'm not done," right? I'm a, I'm a little- I'm further along than I was, right? But I got a long way to go still. What's, what's great for me is the lessons that I got out of it, the learning that I got out of it was incredibly profound, and part of it was being prepared to, uh, grieve the death of my former self and accept this new person that is still learning, still growing, still has patterns that need to be resolved, and are, you know, little by slow.

You can't do it all at once, right? And this wasn't my... You know, I call this w- my dark night of the soul. Well, this wasn't my first one, right? This wasn't my first rodeo. I'd been through the, to the bottom of the bottom before, but this was different, uh, because, you know, like you said, you can know a lot of stuff.

However, not until you experience it can you really know. So there is knowledge, which is not power. It's potential power. It doesn't become wisdom until you have the experience. So part of the reason that I, I know for sure this happened to me, because I came in with that knowledge. Now I have experience, a profound experience about how you can get in a toxic relationship, how not to get in a toxic relationship in the future, right?

Uh, and, uh, and how to get out if you're in one, which is powerful because so many people face this, as I did- And don't know those things. You know, they don't have the tools to be able to identify what it is. They don't have the awareness to see that it's a reflection of themselves. They don't know how to get out of it.

And then what happens is they'll pull- if they do pull themselves out of it, they don't do any work on themselves, and so when they do start dating again, they just meet the same person in a different body, right? So, um, it was, uh, a, a gift for me in that way in, in terms of my counseling as well, as well as the personal freedom that I got out of it.

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. Um, since you're here and w- and we kinda like to swim in the deep end, I wanna, I wanna g- I wanna ask you some questions here about, um... Because it's very common, if you, if you really think about it, when w- you, you know, you're a, a consummate studier, study of the human condition as I am, right?

You know, what, who are we? What are we? How can we accomplish? And let me ask you, um, what do you think some of the characteristics or smoke was around you for those years that kept you detached or unaware of what was behind the mask? Like, you know, that kept on the patterns going, you know? And the reason why I ask this is because there's so many listeners that are listening now, and I, you run into them, I run into them, and it's the one pitfall that I think all human beings, myself included, have, which is I know that.

I know that. I kn- we, you know, we know so much, but, you know, the heart of it is you talked about the experience. The experience was the educator for you. But what was the smoke that kept everything intact before the experience transformed you? Oh, you mean during the, during the time that I, we, we were in a relationship, you mean?

Well, like prior to meeting her a- and everything, you, you know, h- as you were doing life, what was common pattern of life that got, got disturbed, that got shook up to actually awaken you? Yeah. Well, it was just really what, what my life before this did was, uh, prepare me in a, without me realizing it, to get me exhausted, to get me to the point where I just got enough, right?

So I was traveling four days a week. I was doing... Very rarely took a break. Uh, so I was doing all this traveling, running around, focused on, you know, making the world a better place, which is not a bad thing, but no focus on myself. So you become empty. If you don't fill yourself up, eventually you have nothing left to give, right?

You have nothing, right? And then, uh, that's stressful. It creates anxiety, right? And so at the end of it, I'm like, "Gee, I had enough," right? "I had enough." And so then when you've had enough Then the universe can get in, right, finally and say, "Okay, he's gonna stop," right? He's gonna stop running, stop doing all this stuff, and now we can get in there because he's in a, uh, he's in a weakened state mentally, right?

That he's not... He's put- he's giving up the fight, right? He's giving up the fight. And so when I got in this relationship, I was just done. I was spent. So I was open to something new, and I was open to letting it all go, which this relationship caused me to do because... But it wasn't taken from me. I gave it away.

I gave myself away, Tim. I was giving myself so much to her, right, that I wasn't doing the things that made me who I am. And that's so critical because in the end, you're not the person you were anymore, right? You lose your identity. W- and, and so in a re- in a re- not every time, but usually, I hate to generalize, which is a good thing to say before you generalize, right?

So, uh, usually in these kind of toxic relationships, there is one person that is the ultimate giver, and there's one person that is the ultimate receiver, and they destroy thems- they destroy each other. Because no matter how much you give, it's never gonna be enough, and however much they get, it's never gonna be enough.

So you're depleting yourselves, right? And I was, you know, I, I got into obsession, uh, addiction. So I was addicted to her, uh, to the point where you give everything to that addiction, right? That's how... what an addiction is, right? You f- you, you compromise everything that's really important to you. Like, you know, I used to work out every day.

I would meditate every day. I would eat good stuff. I would take good care of myself. All those things start to go out the window because the other person doesn't want you to have those things. All they want you to have is them. They want your world to revolve around them, and they don't realize that necessarily, right?

And what they also don't realize is that once you've done all that, they're gonna have no respect for you, and they're gonna leave you anyway. See, it's, it's a, an in- an in- a untenable situation. And I did know that from the beginning, and I knew that we couldn't stay together forever 'cause we would kill each other, right?

Just the, the intensity of the relationship, it w- there's just no way. Uh, which is why in the book you'll see that we used to live five years in a month. There was just so much going on, so much insanity, so much madness, which, you know, goes back to us and who we were coming into this, and the, the mirrors.

Like, so ironically, just like I was put into a mental institution when I was 16, so was she. Oh, wow. So you have these two extremely dynamic, intense, uh, uh, personalities that come together. It was like, you know, a recipe for nuclear war, right? So this explosive... So it was, uh, you know... So you say, "Well, why stay in it?"

Well, uh, I use the analogy at the beginning of the book. I say, "Have you ever got up in the middle of the night?" You go to the freezer, you open it up, and you take out a tub of ice cream, right? Now, you know if you eat the ice cream, afterwards you're not gonna feel good, you're not gonna feel good about yourself, but you do it anyway, and you love every spoonful, right?

So what I did, I went to the proverbial fridge and I said, "Give me that tub of ice cream. I'm gonna enjoy every last spoonful," knowing that it wasn't gonna end well, right? So that's an analogy. Sometimes even though we know something is not good for us, we can do it anyway because in that moment we want to be distracted from the reality we're in because it's not making us happy.

Same thing with heroin, same thing with amphetamines, same thing with weed. Not always weed, but, you know, some, uh... Same thing with alcohol. It's a distraction. We know drinking that bottle of whiskey is not gonna be good, right? But we do it anyway because that's what we need in that moment. We need a distraction.

So she was my magnificent obsession. She was my ultimate distraction. And don't get me wrong, yes, there were cra- there was craziness. There's-- I call it madness and mayhem in this book, right? Where you just can't believe we did the things we did, but we did. And I say at the beginning of the book, "Look, you're gonna say three things sooner rather than later.

You're gonna say, 'There's no way that happened. That can't be true. Nobody could be that stupid.' But it did . It is, and we were," right? Um, so it is m- madness and mayhem. It is crazy. It's hilarious some of the things we do to each other because, and you said this earlier, we wanna feel safe and we wanna feel in control.

Well, control is a fear. We, we wanna control because we're afraid. Usually, people that are very controlling came from a tough background where they were controlled. They live in a controlling environment, and they don't wanna be controlled anymore. So what they do, the only way to not be controlled is to be controlling.

Because if you say to someone, "You're very controlling," what are they gonna say? "No, I'm not." They don't, they really don't see it, right? They don't see it because they are protecting themselves. They're trying to feel safe, right? And they're afraid if other people control them. The interesting thing, uh, I love the point you're bringing up, is it, it is a, a safety thing.

It is... You know, control is, is this kind of reaching for things, you know, to, to keep us safe, if you will, like what you're talking about. But I find it interesting how, how much energy and effort we put into trying to control stuff that we can't control, and yet One, it seems like one of the hardest things for us to do is actually look in the mirror, and I'm talking about the proverbial mirror.

You know, is that people will sit there and, and put all this effort, all this justification. I mean, look at our world today. Our world has all these justifications and rationalizations and, you know, it's great to believe in conspiracies because then I don't have to be responsible for my own crap, right?

Yeah. And so it's this aspect where, um, they're fighting for control. They're putting out this much energy, and yet if it's getting them anywhere on the dial, it's only getting them up to, like, maybe average. It's not going any further. It's not going... You know, it's not moving really the dial in any sort of positive, constructive direction.

It's more of a maintaining kind of effort and energy. And so for people to, um, get caught up into that control, it's like, would it be worth the energy, would it be worth the effort to just stop and ask some questions? And not so much in your situation, Steven, but, you know, in, uh, for the listeners themselves, it's like, are you willing to look in the mirror?

Because if you don't look in the mirror now, eventually you're gonna keep getting the same lesson over and over and over again. It's gonna be painful for an extended period of time. Would you agree? I mean, what are your thoughts as I'm kind of rambling on here? No, no, it's... y- you're absolutely right. We've created a world of narcissistic victims, right?

So, um, and by the way, I'm, I'm not saying that throughout this whole experience that I was so fully awakened, that I was doing it all, you know, in full... Not at all, you know? So I, I was a victim at times. I'd say, "Why did she do that?" But I would come back to, it didn't happen to me, it happened for me. Now, you could say, "Well, no, no, but she did do this.

I can prove she did this or he did that." It doesn't matter. What you're thinking is they're doing it to you. They're not. Unconsciously, they're doing it for you. So if you think about it in that way and appreciate them, that they have sacrificed part of who they really are, because who we really are is fully enlightened, fully aware beings of light, right?

We've just come into this experience forgetting who we are so that we can, so that we can do this damage sometimes, right? So, uh, what I would think about, there's a great book by, uh, Neale Donald Walsch. It's profound. It's called A Little Soul in the Sun. It's only like twen- it's like 15 pages. It's unbelievable.

It's profound. But anyway, uh, it gets you to realize that all these people that God, the universe, has put in our life are angels. They're coming here for you, and that just changes your perspective. Now, not immediately sometimes, right? I'm not saying you get... I'll give you an example here, right, right out of the book, right?

So it, it was a turmo-tumultuous relationship. I was trying to get things calmed down, uh, to some extent, and get things under what? Control, right? So we would have these arguments, and I was b- I was trying to set boundaries of which she's not interested in a boundary. She doesn't follow anybody's rules, even her own, right?

And she's just completely wild, which was very attractive, too, right? It's wow, this girl is amazing. She's wild, she's adventurous, she's sexy, all this stuff, right? So anyway, at one point, we'd had a... let's just say we'd had a falling out, right? So I'm traveling, I'm on the road, and she's at home, but I locked her out of the house, right?

Because of some of the craziest stuff we'd gone. Anyway, bottom line is she gets to the house knowing I'm away, and she breaks into the house, right? So the next thing, the police are there, right? And it's at night, and it's a, you know, it's a nice neighborhood. And so people are freaking out because they're like, for reasons we're not gonna go into now.

There's... They sent out like 10 squad cars, two SUVs, and the police dogs, and they're running through people's back gardens with these police dogs at night. So but then, so the police call me and tell me this is going on, and I said, "Well, listen, whatever you do, do not let her in that house." 'Cause I knew she was angry, and if she got in that house, anything could happen, right?

So they go, "Well, the problem is, you know, we've been out here a number of times already," which they had, right? We knew half the sheriff's department, right? "So and it seems that she lives here, so we're gonna have to let her in." I went, "Oh my God," right? So now I'm away for three days, right? I come back home to him, and I'm like, oh, I'm trepidation, right?

So I walk in the house, and I'm looking around. Everything seems fine. Wow. We go in the kitchen, and I put the kettle on to have a cup of tea, as we English do, right? So I put the kettle on, I walk out of the kitchen, come back. It's not working. So I look behind the kettle. She's cut the cord. So I'm going, I'm going, "We can't..."

Well, she isn't gonna stop at one cord, right? So find out she's cut the cord to every electrical appliance in the house, the TVs, the lamps, everything, right? But they look fine 'cause you just don't notice that looking at them, right? So then I'm going, "Oh my God, what else has she done?" So when I was a kid going to school, I told you I got humiliated, and this is one example, right?

So my mom, you know, we didn't have a lot of money, so my mom bought me school clothes that were gonna last me my entire educational life. Some of them would fit me today, right? So I'm walking, I'm going to school in these clothes that are drowning me, right? So the kids, you know how kids are. They're freaking...

You know, they're not, they're, they're, uh, you know, they're relentless, right? So they're humiliat- I even got humiliated by the teachers, you know. They didn't know anything about self-esteem back then. You know, you'd be walking across the, uh, the playground and the goat. They would shout, "Edwards, come here.

What are you do- what are you wearing?" You know, all this kind of thing would go on, right? So by the time I was nine, I was buying my own school clothes to get rid of that humiliation. But what happened because of that, to get my point, is I'd become very conscious of what I wear, and I always wanted to be immaculate, wearing the best, the best, and the best of everything.

So at this time, I'm obviously making a lot of money, so I have this amazing wardrobe of clothes which she knew were important to me, right? So I get to the, I get to the closet, right? And I'm lo- and it looked fine again, right? I thought, "Oh, God, please," right? So then of course, you know, you pull the clothes back to look at them, and of course she's cut everything to pieces, right?

So, and the shoes, right? Everything. I'm talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. Anyway, so now I don't say when that happens, Tim, "Oh, fine. This happened for me." That's not realistic, right? I mean, I got upset, obviously. I get angry like anybody does, right? I got frustrated. Um, but for a while, right? So the next day, I'm kind of exhausted from being angry.

And the, and the great thing about being angry is when there's no one there, you can let it out, right? So I let all this anger and frustration out, you know? I mean, I never wanted to hurt her, but I wanted to kill her. So I'm now sitting in a chair looking out the window, right? And I'm thinking, "All right.

Okay. All right. Oh, no." I said, "I'm committed to this belief. So this didn't happen to me, this happened for me. Well, this is gonna be really good, right? L- let's figure that out." So in process, it doesn't happen instantly, but then I r- I went, "Okay, look, what, what are they? They're clothes, right? Okay, well, you can replace clothes, right?

Maybe not as nice as those, but you can replace them, right?" That's the beginning. That's the tip of the iceberg, right? And then I got into why am I, why am I upset? I'm upset because I'm attached to them. And by that I mean they become part of my identity. I started to think, without realizing consciously, I am those clothes.

Those clothes are a representation of me, and they're not, right? They're just literally, like I said at the beginning, they're just clothes. I, who I am is much more than those clothes. Now, who I am didn't cost as much as those clothes, but I am not those clothes. And so she really got me to become aware at an even deeper level of attachment.

In the end, I let it all go, right? I let it all go, right? She didn't take it. I let it all go. And that was a powerful catalyst in that experience. Now, if I hadn't have done that, Tim, I would've still been angry at her to this day that she took those clothes from me, right? She did that to me, and I could've still been angry about it.

So that's why I'm saying to me That belief, if you really do believe it and you really do live it out, it's a profound, has a profound effect on your life because without that kind of belief, you're gonna be a victim, and that's an endless spiral, right? It's always somebody did this to me or life did that to me or God did that to me, uh, and that's not a good place to be.

No, I wanna, I, I wanna add 'cause you're just hitting, you're hitting so many key, um, moments. So in my book, I have a-- there's a chapter that I talk about attachment, and you, you, you know, it's what you were talking about. It's how, how it's atta- you know, we're attached to it, but really it's attached to us, right?

Do we own things or do they own us, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And then, uh, later on I have a chapter called Detachment, which is that aspect what you're talking about. You know, it's, it's the aspect of what is the meaning for this? What is the purpose of this? And, and when we talk about, when we talk about the essence of victim, um, from my, you know, my book and background and training, I sit there and I go, "It's another label."

It's another label from like, you know, when you had your experience as a child. It is very key and elemental. So to any listener that's listening today, you know, your past traumas, whether they were yesterday, a year ago, in your childhood, they're yours. You know, you may find some comparison with someone else and have what, what might be considered a kinship or relatedness about it, which can help, but at the same time it's like when we have this, th-this victim kind of energy, this victim kind of state, it's like, yeah, life is happening to us.

They're doing it to me, right? And for you to actually go through the pain, and, and this is why I keep highlighting it, is, um, you were with the struggle, you were with the awareness, and ultimately you were with the experience that actually grew you to change in, in your expression and change, grow, you know, mature, whatever you wanna call it.

You really had that opportunity to change and grow yourself, and you took it. Whereas so many people, when the experience comes up, they can have all the ideas, thinking, intelligence, rationalization, but if they don't actually move through the experience like you did, they end up fooling themselves. They cycle back through the old patterns that they've been doing.

Would you agree? I totally agree, and, and that's why I say, you know, I was blessed that I did have the background that I had to help me get through it, right? And that I came out of it in a better place. Because without those, uh, tools if you want it, you know, tools, right? And tools are great, but experience, you know, so you take knowledge and you add experience, now you got wisdom.

That's a whole different look, right? You can have a lot of knowledge but not, but not, but not wisdom 'cause you never applied it, right? So by actually getting into that situation and that having that a profound effect, and that's why I'm so, like, aware that this happened for me and I'm supposed to be putting it out there in the world to help other people not to go through it.

Now, I didn't figure that out right away. I mean, this happened 10 years ago, right? This happened 10 years ago. So there were a lot of things that stood in my way after that. So this is gonna sound funny, right? But after I came out of that relationship, not right away, but I got another relationship, and I wanted to write this book.

But I kept thinking, "How can I write this book about a toxic relationship, erotic relationship, erotic romance, and being with some..." I mean, how's that gonna work, right? There's no way, right? "What are you writing about?" "Well, I'm, I'm writing about the sex room in the mansion," you know what I mean? "What?" And who...

You know what I mean? And the, this international supermodel that I was dating at the time. You know, they're not gonna... And then I'm gonna write a book about it and then go promote the book. They're gonna be, "Where does that leave me?" Right? So anyway, so finally the universe opened up and, uh, opened my mind to being alone for three years.

I'd never spent three years alone before, right? And so really taking a look at this, looking at myself, should I say, right, reflecting on my life, because one of the things I said, Tim, at the beginning is, you know, I've spent my entire life running away. I mean, I've lived in 20 cities, right? I've been to 50 of the, uh, sorry, 48 of the 50 states.

I've been all over the world, right? I mean, I was pretty good at running, right? I was in four marriages. Four marriages, and I ran away, right? So I mean, I'm re- anybody wants to know about how to run away, give me a call. I got it. So finally I stopped. Enough. No more running. No more doing events. No more traveling.

Let it go. And being with myself, being alone with myself, meditating, really, really being self-reflective, and writing this book, right? You wanna talk about self-reflection, holy shit, right? I'm writing this book, right? Um, and, uh, but as I'm in... I'm enjoying writing it, Tim. Am I... Because I'm going, I'm laughing at myself, laughing at the circumstances, right?

And then sometimes I'd be crying because it was so tragic, right? There's so much tragedy in there, too. Because in the end, and I'm not gonna spoil the, the, I'm not gonna spoil the plot, but in the end, there's a reason that we couldn't be together anymore that was outside of our control anyway, and we had no control over it, right?

And so by going through all that and, um, understanding, uh, you know, when I finally understood where all this was coming from for her, it gave me a deeper compassion for her. It didn't make me angry. It made me feel more compassion for her, right? And understood her more. So in the end, when I had to make that final decision to let her go To save my own sanity, you know?

My therapist said, "Steven, listen, man, you're sliding away. You're slipping away. Oh, not only your identity, not only your house and your, all your stuff, which is not that important, but more importantly, you're losing your sanity. And if you stay in this, you will be gone, and you may not find your way back," right?

A- and then she also said some things to me that also helped me, too, and because now, you know, you're listening now, because you're ready to listen. You'll keep doing it until you've had enough, right? You'll just keep in there, like heroin, alcohol, whatever. At some w- well, at some point you're gonna come to, "Enough is enough.

I've had enough. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired," right? And so I was at that point, so I was open to listening. And she said to me, "Look, Steven..." And she knew about her past. She knew that she was in a mental institution when she was 16. She had to break out, by the way. She didn't get let out. She got...

She broke out, right? So she was always terrified of ever having to go back in there again, so she would never go to therapy. I mean, who could blame her, right? I mean, you can't blame her for not wanting to go back there and ge- and the, facing the possibility that she could be, um, put back in an asylum, right?

So she's never gonna do the work, right? And she has a disease that is not curable. The only way you can actually learn how to live with it is by going to therapy three times a week, and then your life is not... It's still gonna be tough, right? But she would never go to therapy. So my therapist said, "Steven, you gotta understand something, that without therapy, there's no hope, and she won't go to therapy.

So if she's not prepared to go to therapy, she doesn't love you enough." Now, that's like a dagger in your heart, right? Because someone you love doesn't love you enough to do what's necessary. Now, there's no blame there, because the only way that she can get any respite is through distractions, right?

That's the only way she can feel alive. So she would never give up the drugs. She would never give up the alcohol. She would never give up sex the way she was addicted to it, because they were the only time she felt alive. It validated her. It validated her, and it gave her a way to es- es- escape the pain.

Reality for her was a pain. So she would rather die than give those things up, right? Never gonna happen. So yeah, interesting. So a couple other things you said about pos- possessions, right? So possessions, the reason it's called possessions is because they possess you. They take your energy. They take time to maintain.

They take time to get them. And then what happens is you get on the possession train, where the possessions you have now will be obsolete in a year. You'll need the new car. You'll need the latest, uh, gadgets. Whatever it is, it's a never-ending journey of desperation. They'll never fulfill you, and you'll always need more.

You made a good point. It's like when you're not addressing the real issue, you're never gonna deal with the real problem, right? And oftentimes we fool ourselves into, um, "I'm doing a lot of work." Well, it's a lot of busy work because if you're not willing to do, I call it the heavy lifting. You know, like you talked about therapy, it's like, now just I'm gonna throw this out there.

Therapy can be many different forms. It doesn't have to be going and sitting down with a psychiatrist or a psychologist. That, that's one option, but there's many other modalities. I, I, I'm a believer that, you know, as we're talking here, it's like there's so many different influences in the world that can add or subtract.

And if you find something that adds to your growth and path, and you're willing to go through the challenges... 'Cause challenges can be, you know, I mean, it's like, it's working a muscle. It's kinda going back to what you were talking about. It's like, um, you know, if you're showing up at the gym and you're walking around and you're talking to everybody and you're, you're moving around a little bit, but you're not really lifting anything, you're not actually breaking down any muscle, you're not gonna grow any muscle.

You're not gonna grow any endurance. Um, so you have to actually apply yourself to something that challenges you, something that stresses you, something that, that may break down some of your muscles so you can grow back stronger in that awareness. So sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanna add to- No, no, you're exactly right.

You know, and that's what I talk to cl- uh... I don't have a lot of clients, you know, and, and it's not, we're not gonna be compatible. Everybody's not compatible. But I tell people, "Listen, I'm, I'm not messing around." Right? I'm not a, I'm not someone you're gonna call once a week who's gonna listen to you and then tell you what you wanna hear.

That's a waste of time, a waste of time for you and for me. So for you, for us to work together, you've gotta convince me that you're committed. Oh, yeah. And then people say, then people will say, "What? I'm paying you." I'm like, "Nah, you can pay to go to the gym, but you don't do any working out." Right? So I'm not gonna waste my time going through all of this with you for e- and, and give you assignments to do 'cause you're not gonna l- you're not gonna change with being on the phone with me, right?

You're gonna change by doing the things I give you to do and learn through experience, right? Using the tools that I'm gonna show you how you can use. Now, if I- you come back to me next week and you say, "Well, I didn't have time," how committed are you? You don't have time for yourself to become who you really are, who you really wanna be?

Because here's the truth, you don't have a relationship problem. You have a pattern problem, like you and I have been talking about, right? And nothing's gonna change until we change the patterns, right? Change the patterns, everything else will change. Right? So what's more important? What were you doing this week that was so important that it was more important than you?

Because this has been a problem, hasn't it? This has been a pattern. You give yourself away to everybody and everything else because you think that's gonna get you love, and how's that working for you so far? So I'll give you, uh, uh, I, uh-- Yeah, right, right in step with what you're talking about. I'm gonna give you an example.

So, um, one of my referral partners that I work with, 'cause I work with some of their clients, um, they deal with people who do assisted, uh, medical, um... Trying to think of what it's called, but it's, it's like medical awakening, you know, through ketamine, ayahuasca, you know, certain-- where, where they guide you through these transformational experiences, right?

And what they found, the reason why this person became a, a partner of mine was they found that these, these beings, these souls who are having challenges, who have gotten to this point, that they're gonna do this awakening. So they go and do the drugs and, and the intensive experience, and they have these incredible w- openings, awarenesses, and then what do they find out?

That they end up weeks or months later back in the same pattern. And it's, it's the aspect of, um, where when I'm working with these folks, it's, it's a real big help because it's like, all right, let's take what you learned from the awakening, and let's start really examining how you're showing up with your patterns and your awareness.

Because just 'cause you have information, just 'cause you have an epiphany, just because you have a, an insight doesn't mean it's gonna change your world until you start growing into that new experience. No, no kidding, man. I've had profound, profound spiritual awakenings where I've been literally sitting in bliss, crying not because I'm sad, but out of joy, right?

Means nothing, right? Doesn't mean anything, right? It, it's like, you know, there's a story of the, uh, the young Chinese boy. He's working in a laundry, laundromat, right? And he's walking, uh, walking through the laundromat with a basket of clothes, right? And suddenly he has satori, which means instant awakening.

Fully enlightened, has this experience standing in the middle of a laundrette. When it's over, he picks up the basket and keeps walking because it's just back to life, right? You gotta, you gotta, you gotta be able to live it in life, not just sitting in a room where there's nothing other than you just having this experience, right?

So now to st- But to say that it didn't have an effect on me in my life would not be true either. It did have an effect on me. It's a memory that's in the cells of my being that does help me at different times. Same thing but, you know, you can take ketamine or go to ayahuasca. I am not saying for one second those things cannot have a profound ex- uh, a, a profound impact on your life, 'cause there's lots of people who've had it, no question.

But let me give you a quick, a quick example of exactly what you're saying. So I watched an interview with, um- Uh, and my next guest is, what's the guy's name that used to be on CNBC late night that was the, uh, the comedian? What's his name? He's, he's retired now. Not Stephen Colbert, no. No, no, 'cause he's still going a little bit, right?

He's got a little bit left. But if we're going... Uh, Letterman. Letterman, right? Letterman, yeah. So Letterman had a series on Netflix, right, where he interviewed, you know, he even interviewed Obama and he interviewed all these people, right? So he interviewed Will Smith. So in this interview, Will Smith was talking about his experience with ayahuasca and how it had changed his life and now he no longer had any fear and all this stuff.

And then about a month later, he cracked Chris Rock at the Oscars, right? So saying that you couldn't be hooked into something, and then a month later finding he was. Now, I'm not criticizing him. I don't know what had gone on there, but the bottom line is he was hooked and he caught himself... He was caught out because somebody had a hook on his emotions, right?

So he thought that his work was done, right? And like you and I have said, it's not ever gonna be done in one thing, one situation. It's something that you can, uh, deal with over time. 'Cause look, for example, when I, uh, was having this experience in this relationship, there were so many mirrors that came back at me, right?

I'm like, "I can't deal with all of these at once," right? You know? I'm still dealing with some of that stuff, right? And I still remember. So I'll give you an example, right? So one of the things that I've done, you know, I've told you all these luminaries that I've worked with, right? But whose name's not in there?

Mine. So I've always leaned on the back and the coattails of other people, and it was time for me to be who I am and to go out and be able to promote my work. Why had I never promoted my work? Because I didn't feel good enough, right? Self-esteem, okay? I wanna add something to that, though, 'cause it's so, it's such rich what you just said.

So to, to, to be able to stand in your own voice and your own expression, right? To, to be that, that vibration that is just that vibration. And then there's the other aspect is because I always talk about, you know, s- with clients a- and, you know, on the podcast from time to time, life is a layered experience and life is a multiple layered experience.

And so here's the aspect. Even of those luminaries, those luminaries, they're not any more luminary than in you and I are. Because the truth of the matter is, is they stand upon the shoulders, upon the shoulders, upon the shoulders of those who came before them. Through the wisdom, through the ages. I mean, a lot of the best teachings that I embrace and love are from two, three, 4,000 years ago, and it's because the human condition is still the human condition.

And so I wanna highlight you are absolutely right. Stand up and be and own and embrace that vibration that you are For those who are called to that will come to that, right? And at the same time, you know, it's, it's the humbleness, the, the, you know, the relatability, you know, that you have. I mean, that's, that's one thing I was looking forward to having this interaction with you today is, you know, learning a little bit about you and seeing so many similarities between our, our philosophies and, and lessons and all that kind of stuff.

And it's like, uh, there's no accident the universe brings you together with, you know, with these people that, you know, hey, as you're going forward, it's not attachment, it's, it's appreciation, it's gratitude, it's... Right? And so I just wanted to highlight that. Yeah. It, it c- it can also be... Yeah, it can also be a shadow that you can hide behind, right?

As well as growing, right? A- and it was for me because, don't get me wrong, you know, these people had a profound impact on my life. I learned so much, right? And they have ultimately given me the belief and confidence in myself to step out. But that can't happen un- it couldn't happen until I was ready, right?

And I had such a low opinion of myself and my own, uh, my own self- self-esteem. But people would argue with me, "There's no way you had low self- you get on stage in front of thousands of people." And I go, "Yeah, but it's not... That's a different, it's not the same thing." You know, you... I'd get upstage, and people would come up to me and say, "Man, you really got your shit together.

You know, would you be... You know, you're amazing." I'd go, "No, no, no, no. That, that up there, that was... That's, that's a persona. That's a show," right? "That's not who I am," right? If I was doing all those things right now, I'd have already ascended to heaven, right? So it's just, you know, but people start to think and admire people, but what they're really doing is they're recognizing in that person on stage a part of themselves, a potential that they have, right?

You know, it's not about, uh, it's not about, you know, whether it's Tom Cruise or, uh, Brad Pitt or, uh, Margot Robbie or... They're just people. They're just people. Now, I say just people. I mean, Margot is pretty, pretty beautiful. But anyway, my point is, right, they are real people, and that's why very often those people don't wanna be with the public, because they treat them like they're a god, right?

And they're like, "Nobody can live up to that. That's not who I am. You don't know me as a person," right? So and then people say, you know, "He, he's a self, he's a self-made man. Wow, that's pretty amazing. How did he pull that off?" You know? "Is he immaculate conception?" I mean, nobody is a self-made man. You just said it, man.

I would say this all the time. We all stand on the shoulders- Of those who came behind us. And we have to be grateful for them, right? Because they made it easier for us, right? They made it easier for us. Um, it's like the guy who run, who ran the, uh, the four-minute mile, right? They said it could never be done.

Oh, yeah. But he- heart would break. Now people do it every day. Kids, high school kids do it, right? So but he led the way. He was the first, right? Well, and it was breaking that paradigm too. It was really- Yeah ... you know- Breaking, exactly ... you, you opened up that- That's so powerful. I'm breaking that paradigm

paradigm for people. Yes. Yeah. So- And the challenge for people who break paradigms, it's not easy for them either, right? Oh, God, no. Because a pa- a paradigm shift is first three steps, right? First, it's vehemently opposed. You know? "Oh, that's ridiculous. Who do you think you are?" You know, uh, "You can't do that," right?

And then the second phase is you get ridiculed for it. You know, so you, you, you're teaching people how to make money, or you go... Let's say you go to a, a, a wealth seminar to learn how to increase your wealth, right? And then you come back from the wealth seminar and people, "Oh, look who it is. It's Steven Edwards, the multimillion...

How many millions have you made this... How many millions did you make this weekend?" You know what I mean? Ridicule, right? Making you feel bad. And then the third st- the third stage is when it's just accepted as obvious, right? "Oh, you know, well, Tim, he was always really smart," right? "I mean, it was easy for him.

He, he, you know, he had everything going for him," and so on and so on and so on. So that... It's not easy to be, uh, someone who shifts a paradigm. Um, you know, Tony Robbins, same thing. I, I'm thinking of Anthony Hopkins, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Who was an overnight success because of Silence of the Lambs, and he's, like, going, "I've been in the industry for 20 years and was, was looking to quit," right?

And it's not... It's that human, you know, the, the patterns that humans have for other people too, how they, how they take in their world, their perspective, their limited perspective. Their, their, you know, it's... I, I say this often, it's like, you know, we talk about people on the spectrum, and I, I contend that everybody's on the spectrum.

W- but when we talk about the spectrum, it's just because it's related to people who have autism or something like that. And it's like going, "No, these are gifted souls that they're on that part of the spectrum," but they're s- I mean, the spectrum encompasses everybody, right? It's who we are. And if we have that awareness and that inclusion, doesn't mean I'm responsible for taking on someone else's responsibility.

It means that we have the ability to influence from a very gifted natural stance of who we are. Yeah. I actually said in the book, I don't know if you know that. I talk about, we're on... I actually talk about it in the book. The, they call it the spectrum of insanity. Oh, cool. Because we're all insane. Yeah. We live in a world that's completely insane.

You have no choice in this world, if you want to live in this world, than to be insane. And so what I'm really trying to do is to get people to let go of judgment, right? We're all somewhere on that spectrum, right? And, you know, part of it is choice and part of it is just the life experiences you have. Um, when you can accept , you know, part of it was because I, I'm insane, right?

And I tell people I was in an insane asylum at the Shawshank. But we're all ex- insane in some way, shape, or form or another. So, and then you talk about success, you know, and I, I actually say that quite a lot. But I actually say it takes 10 years to be an overnight success. You know, Anthony Hopkins said 20 years, which is great, and the longer the better in a way.

Here's why. So in that time, you're having all these, uh, experiences. Some of them are tough, right? Anthony Robbins could tell you, you know, where he came from, the life he had when he grew up, all those things, right? It was not easy, right? And he didn't become the success he is till he... You know, you talked about the Silence of the Lambs.

He was a very, he was very well-known stage performer, theatrical performer. He was always very good at that. But then he brought that to the big screen. That's why he was able to do these incredible characters. But my point is this: if you become famous too soon, it will destroy you because you're not emotionally, mentally ready And you see this now to all these young superstars.

Look what happened to, um, oh gosh, um, the name is on the... You, you've seen this, right? With different singers, artists, you know, that they get this incredible success and it completely destroys their life, right? Because they don't know how to deal with it. They don't have the emotional strength. They don't have the emotional awareness.

They don't have the mental awareness to understand what it really means. When these people put them on a pedestal, they start to believe that stuff, right? But they can't cope with it because it, it's an image they can't maintain, and so they're scared to go out, anybody to talk to them, to see them, to go and be a human being because they're expected to keep up this image that they have on stage, and it's just not feasible.

So yeah, you know, actually having to wait a little bit longer, build your emotional strength, uh, have more experiences, create some wisdom, so when you see it, you take it for what it is. It's not real. It's not real, you know? It's just a A made up idea Oh, man. We could just keep talking. I mean, there, there's so much that we could ke- continue to explore and, and share ideas and concepts for the folks that are listening.

Um, 'cause the truth is, is this is such a rich, uh, area of exploration, personal exploration, exploration, and discovery for ourselves. Because really it's nobody tells you in- how to do your life. You learn how to do your life. And the question is, is how do you actually start to manage, lead, and, and direct your life well?

Um, we, we... I may, I may have to have you back again sometime so we could chat some more. Um I hope so. Go ahead. I look forward to that. Yeah. This, this is, is fun, fun conversation here. I do wanna let our listeners know that you have graciously given us a, a, a link that's gonna be in the description, and it has the first three chapters of your book, so they'll be able to get a taste of, you know, what the book is and, and get, get 'em rolling so that then they can explore what your journey was through that experience.

I have actually read the three chapters, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm looking forward to see what comes next." So- Good ... that, that'll be excited. And also you, uh, there is another, uh, discount code and everything for your coaching and consultation. So that's in there as well. Yeah. And they can get... It, it's complimentary, right?

So nobody has to spend any money until they feel sure they're gonna spend it wisely. So yeah, 30 minutes we'll chat, see if there's a connection. If you think I can help, then we can go from there. Awesome. Well, Steven, thank you so much for joining us today. It was really pre- uh, real big pleasure meeting you and just exploring, you know, life's awarenesses and, and what the human, human condition does for us.

So I wanna wish you all the best. I thank you well. I thank you and send you off very well. To our listeners, um, you know, please keep coming back. If you like the show, uh, give us a like, pass us on to a friend and, uh, we look forward to seeing you in the next episode. So until then, cheers. Thank you for joining us today.