Ep 52 | Staci Bartley

Divorce, Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Parenting | 0 comments

Staci Bartley | Broken Hearts & Broken Dreams

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

From the age of 16, Staci Bartley was in the Relationship School of Hard Knox. She found herself pregnant at the age of 16. And, to do the “responsible” thing, she and her then-boyfriend (21 at the time) decided they would get married. A year later, she would end up a divorced single mother. However, at 21, she would expect a second child with a new man in her life, and, together, they decided to get married.

It would take a lot of heartbreak and breaking down to recognize that the effort to attain the perfect family and life contained within the constraints of a white picket fence was too much for her 13-year marriage to take. She would find herself, by this time, a single mom of 5. And,  this time, she decided she would enter into any future relationships on her terms and that she would never marry again.

But life had other plans for her, and although Staci did ultimately find her happily ever after, it wasn’t without a lot of relationship road-rash along the way.

Listen in on my conversation with Staci, Relationship Expert, and Mediator, to learn why and how the relationships we choose to enter into can be the most beautiful, trying, and teachable experiences of our lives. And, you can bet that grief has a whole lot to do with what we’re talking about today. There is something for everyone to relate to in this episode.

RESOURCES/CONNECT WITH STACI:

• StaciBartley.com
• Love Shack Live Podcast
• Instagram
• Facebook

Victoria Volk  00:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Staci Bartley. She is an international relationship expert and mediator. She comes from a generation of messy, hard, and treacherous relationships. She’s versed in old paradigm agreements, unrealistic expectations, and shame for not being able to create long lasting relationships. Essentially, she truly understands failing at love. After 30 plus years and lots of learning and adventures, Staci’s was brought to the realization that there is no such thing as failing at relationships, because each and every one you’ve been in, or will ever be in contributes to who you are, and who you are becoming. Thank you so much, Staci for being here.

Staci Bartley  00:45
Oh, it’s such a pleasure to be here with you. Anytime I get to co create with you, Victoria, I’m in.

Victoria Volk  00:51
Awesome. Today we’re going to talk about broken dreams, broken hearts, divorce, pregnancy, out of wedlock, failing at life and love or feeling as if you do. So, lots to get to. So, let’s jump in. I want to start because I’m familiar with your backstory. But I want to start from the front porch when you were 14.

Staci Bartley  01:14
There was my sister’s wedding. And it was a beautiful sunny day, and my sister was starting to get the jitters that you get on your wedding day, you know, panicking a little bit like oh, I hope this is gonna go well. My mom was starting to try and calm her down and I just needed to seek some refuge on the porch. I was thinking I’m out of here. I don’t know what to do with all of us. I found myself a nice, warm, comfortable place. And I remember feeling the warm cement on my legs and looking up and feeling brace on the trees. And just about the time I was like completely settled in. My soon to be brother-in-law came running around the back of our house. Oh my gosh, you guys made it and I glanced up. And there was a car full of four guys across the street parked and they were attending the wedding and had come from the east coast where my students be brother-in-law had grown up in Maryland. And as all four doors opened down, the back one on the passenger side there popped out this adorable, beautiful smile, fluffy, curly hair, big grin. And I was I was awestruck as this 14-year-old girl of like, Oh my gosh, like I’ve never been in a relationship. I grew up in a very strict household with you know, religious paradigms that had kind of run the show I’d never really even contemplated except for a crush on white boys and my my Sunday school class, what that could be like, but in this moment, it was like, oh, wow, I want a guy like that someday. Right? And I discovered through the day that his name was Tom. And right from that moment on every time my brother and sister-in-law would say you don’t know my friend Tom, let’s go California. My insurance would go up. Right? Like, oh, yeah, totally. I remember following him around a wedding, you know, just trying to get any Intel that you possibly can. Because I would just sit and watch like this beautiful smile and his hair bouncing around in the wind. It was a magical, magical moment for me. And I didn’t know that later in my life. When I was looking at almost 40, I was going to come back to that very significant moment.

Victoria Volk  03:24
So, what happened then?

Staci Bartley  03:29
Wow, as the story goes, three years later, I found myself pregnant by my high school boyfriend that was kind of blew up my whole fancy paradigm, right? In that moment on the steps, I remember thinking I’m going to be really good at this love thing. Oh, I got this one in the bag. Right? I’ve been given all the rules and structure according to my family and my my religious paradigm. I’m gonna kill it. I’m gonna I’m not gonna stay out of the park, only to find myself devastatingly pregnant at 17 and grappling with that. I think the hard part about that piece wasn’t so much about being pregnant. Of course, that was kind of earth shattering as you, you know, just literally being a teenage child. I very young adult with no life experience was the impact that it had on my family. That that’s, that’s always that’s always been a kicker, right? It’s one thing to go through an experience. But then when you start to see that it starts to shatter the lives of the people around you what you have done, the choices that you’ve made, impact the people that you love the most. That’s the one that always gets me in the heart. And if I could go back and change it, that would be for my mom, who didn’t really know how to support me through it and who had just newly married herself. And so, I had a stepfather that it stepped into the picture at the age of 16, which was kind of the I don’t want to say it blame is the piece it was just it was motivating to not be at home. And so I found another place to be unfortunately at my boyfriend’s house where his parents and family was was much more liberal than my saving so it gave us lots of room to explore and expand and I became familiar with things I didn’t have any any knowledge of right in my environment where I came from. And the stepfather You know, he loved my mom I know but he didn’t necessarily want me to be a part of the picture and I’m sure thinking right as we’ve had conversations later in life he was basically interested in just kind of getting me moved out and on my way so that he could have that relationship with my mom that he so wanted but didn’t want to deal with me there was never a lot of love lost there so you know, that was the part that was the killer as the as the parents then then became what are we going to do with this right what are we going to what are we going to do with this I just broken up I’ve just gone to confession you know, I was just going to turn my life around get back on and then oh, oh my gosh, we’re gonna have a baby No, this can’t be and so then as best I could my mom stepped in and the first thing that she wanted to do was was kind of cover it up you know, okay, let’s send you to my aunt’s house and have you have the baby there and come back like everything’s fine. I’m thinking is that what you do? Like you know, you start to see a whole new side of things and people that you thought you knew you know, for example, not that she was trying to be dishonest but she was trying to make it look normal she was trying to look like everything was fine. And I think sometimes as human beings we we attempt to do that we want it to look according to the picture that we’ve been taught it’s supposed to look like instead of like being honest and open about the realities of life and I so wish we could do that right in our lives I so wish that we could share stories about our messes just as easily as we do about cold remedies. And you know, fixing the washer and preparing the right the cleaning the house, you know, what are your cleaning techniques, and how can I get it done have more efficient, more effective, and unfortunately, just like so many, we went to trying to cover it up, which makes you kind of even feel more shameful and guilty, you know. And I thought, oh, I don’t want to do that I’m gonna have to live with the aftermath of that. And I and for whatever reason I’m so thankful I became very, very heightened and aware that whatever decision happens in this moment is going to change the rest of my life. Right? I was very aware of that. Like, I’m going to be the one and only person that’s going to live with whatever choices are made here personally and then of course there will be the ripple out, but everybody will get past that I won’t This is going to be a lifelong decision. And so, I explored all the abortion I explored adoption and ironically an older brother of mine had just lost a stillborn just had a stillborn baby, he and his wife. And that was really sad. And I, I think that they saw this as an opportunity to kind of replace that loss. Because sometimes we think about that as far as loss to right, we think we can just kind of take the loss that we’ve experienced, and replace it with somebody else, or something else. And we attempt to do that as well. I did too. And I remember thinking No, that’s that’s not right, either. You know, they may they laid out this glorious plan about how it was going to be great. And I could still be involved in this baby’s life and then take charge of that. And then there was my cute little 19-year-old boyfriend, thank goodness he was two years older and had a job and my truck and kind of had some adulting behind him. And he wanted to get married and he wanted to save the baby wanted to have and through a lot of cry, sleepless nights and tears and conversations with myself and my sister and my mom. I decided I was going to get married. And so we had a shotgun wedding at my house do you have to make this look good. We can’t be too far along in this pregnancy. Have two families together and I wrote off and had to figure out what it was like to be a wife. And I assumed to be mom, when that little person came into my life It changed my life. And that beautiful soul is still very close to me to this day. Her and I Her name is bro we’ve grown up together. We literally grown up together and weathered many, many storms and wonderful good times. And I loved being a mom and thank goodness that was the case. You know, it’s not always the case and there’s no right or wrong there. But in my particular story in situation thank goodness for me. I really loved being a mom I was satisfied there. And so once I kind of got my bearings, I was able to go back to school and kind of start putting the wheels on again and of course as you could probably already predict the relationship wasn’t gonna last you fell apart within the first 12 months. And then I found myself 19 years old, and on my own and doing college and work in a lumber store, and just trying to be a good person again, right, just trying to go back to where I came from the roots that I felt like we’re intrinsic to me and who I want to be. And you just start, you start growing, you start learning, and you start looking for how to do that, right. And so then, as I’m working it out, I decided I’m going to start dating again and Michael stone really good about how this was going and wham bam, I found myself pregnant a second time at 20. So that was a whole we just kind of like a repeat, you know, so you know that saying that they have about lessons in life. But then the lesson will continue to be presented until it’s learned. Yeah, that’s really a true thing come to find out, right? Yeah, that’s, that’s real. So um, gosh, I got pregnant, it’s like, are pregnant a second time married a second time. And this time, I was gonna do it right. And it was going to be my penance for all the things that I had done wrong, I was going to, you know, make some, some reparations. And I was going to do it right. And well, this time, and thankfully, the, this person I had made it up, this was going to be the person because it was my come from my religion, we come from a very similar background, we were very in alignment, and he was trying to put his life back together too. And so we were going to tag team this and hold hands and we were going to follow rules. This time, we were going to do it by the book. And so this idea of the perfect life and the perfect family and the perfect children, and the perfect scenario took on some ferocity. And in the end, that’s really what killed her marriage was I there wasn’t any flexibility for navigating the messes and the ups and downs of life that had to be by the book. And more and more as the constraints of that kind of started to crush in on us. His mental health challenge that being a bipolar struggled to rage out of control. And at the time, I didn’t see that it had something to do with me in the way that I was showing up in my relationship to that’s the interesting thing about relationships is there’s always a cause and effect to it, right, as much as we can point fingers and, and blame the other person for how they’re showing up. There’s a cause and effect to that. And there’s probably a piece of something that I might be doing to cause them to want to show up like that. So in this particular case, my husband would just go missing, right, and they’re finding himself in office several miles away from our family home, and we just go missing and was battling his own challenges with addiction. And you know, he wasn’t perfect, and he knew it wasn’t perfect, but there was no room to have that conversation in our relationship. Certainly not with me. As I was doing I remember him like grabbing my my shoulders one day and saying Why can’t you just be less perfect? Why can’t you just make more of a mess because then I think I’d feel better. I didn’t understand I thought that was the plan. I thought we were supposed to do this right? Right, I mean, and so it was just pull it together for you pull it together, pull it together, and there was not really a lot of emotional support for him. So that relationship of course come crashing down 13 years later, and by then we had adopted a family daughter being the oldest and we had had four more so I was leaving the house with five babies in tow. And once again, kind of trying to piece it together and put it back together. And that’s really where my my journey and the work that I did now started to come into play. I started learning everything I could get my hands on personal development thanks thankfully, my husband couldn’t stay in that box couldn’t stay perfect couldn’t stay with inside of the lines not I told him since is the greatest gift he ever gave me. Because if I would have continued to stay in that paradigm I would have never had the opportunity to become who I am today and do the work that I do and and be suffering for that right and we forget about that especially when it’s difficult Don’t you think we forget about that how is this situation going to add to my life in the future who it is that I’m becoming? And that’s what I love to say there’s there’s no failing there’s no wasted experience in life. There’s, there’s there’s things that we make messes, right? But mistakes are different than failure failure implies at least for me that you can’t get up and you can’t go again when that’s really all that needs to be done. is okay. Well, gosh, what did we learn there and that kind of hurt. Gosh, that that knocked me I don’t see that coming. Okay, let’s go again and try again. Anything would be better than not doing anything. So, moving forward became the only way I knew how to get up. Just, you know, go again, just try your best to put one foot in front of the other and see where it leads you It’s better than staying here in this hellhole, right? Let’s go. And little by little I just I, I was immersed in personal development became a facilitator that stepped into becoming a CH t certified hypnotherapist but took me on to becoming as I was involved in my own recovery and counseling process, I was able to extend and teach what it is I had learned and the principles that I was learning in my own life. I think that really helped me to develop some confidence and some self esteem. And then that just kind of continued to go on, it took me into studying the body and health that took me into quantum physics and neuroscience that took me into studying psychology and and what was so interesting is regardless of the realm that I was in whether I was trying to be that counselor or I was trying to be that digestive health support coach, or where I was learning those herbal tinctures or that raw food, I was teaching that raw food class, you know, at the community college, I’d always find myself in the back of the room talking to somebody about their relationships, whether that was the relationship with ourselves relationship with a lover or relationship with their children or parents, right, I consistently all of a sudden became aware that I was always in these conversations of navigating relationships. So there I am, right little by little. That’s how I arrived at the work that I do today, the passionate place that I have, there’s not too many things that you could throw at me that I haven’t probably personally lift. And I say that with all the grace and humble emotions of that it’s just experiences on my heart. And please don’t try and blow me out because that would just be a tragedy. So, you know, that’s always the biggie, when people come in with their relationship challenges is, you know, is Am I safe here? Can I really share you the real deal with you can we really get raw and it’s like, I’m with you there, I probably walked a mile in your shoes, which I think really lends to my passion of teaching through experiences, not only the knowledge that I learned that the experiences that I have. So, I spent 15 years, raising my family and I flipped into instead of wanting to be this people pleaser, or do it right perfectionistic I kind of flipped to the way for our side of the scale of like, I’m an independent woman now baby, and I’m doing life on my own terms. And I’m not proud of this but men kind of became a thing for me to kind of became like a byproduct that I was trying to come from men more to be used on my terms. And according to my rules and my structure, I’m going to tell you how this is going to go and why and when. And then when I’m done, go ahead and be gone with you. I’m not proud of that at all. And I say this because if there’s ever any of my wonderful people who contributed to who I became on my journey, I just want them to know that I see that. And then I’m sorry, right? I’m sorry for those things. I’m trying to find myself and you have to understand the know that as human beings that’s what we do. We don’t do it because we’re trying to be mean or unkind or thoughtful. We’re doing it because we’re trying to heal ourselves. And it’s messy. It’s really really messy and that doesn’t make it okay, and it doesn’t make it any less egregious. But if I’m a hot mess trying to figure myself out, I really don’t have anything to contribute to those around me. But even if they are extending love to me sometimes, I can’t let it in. So, all of this to bring us back to that moment where you had me start in this conversation Victoria right the woman on the porch there for 35 years my brother and sister-in-law continued to say to me Hey Stacy, you don’t know my friend Tom or Tom that lives in California but he’s you know, fill in the blank. He started a business he’s got married he’s I was little kids. Um, and I have done quite a bit of work, but the Economic Development Office for the state of Utah, and it’s pretty tapped in network wise. And I got a call from the same brother-in-law one day and saying hey stays, but you know, my friend Donna loves California, but hey, he’s trying to extend this business into you, Tom. I’d love to give him your phone number set. Okay. I was like that, like, Eric Yeah, bring it on. I don’t know. I just I was curious to just have a conversation with him because for 35 years I’ve never even like engaged with him since that wedding or were heard his voice or even knew this person, Tom, but through years of my own journey relationally the ups and downs, I would have literal journal entries of Gosh, I just wish I could meet a tall man like Tom some days I’m tears on the page, right? And then I get I remember throwing it dice like that I don’t even know Tom, what am I saying? That’s the craziest thought ever. Why would you write something so stupid She goes, we can get so critical with ourselves to journal across the room right? In my fitting rage of trying to figure out this relationship journey thing that was kicked in my tracks the one that I was supposed to be so good at, remember the one that I was going to knock out of the park and get so right. And it had just been one epic failure for me after another as I grapple and try and understand and go again, right? And so I was like, heck yeah, happened, give me a call. That’s just crazy mind blowing. The rest of history, as they say, if we got on the phone and started talking, we didn’t talk about persons for very long. And we started to get to know each other. And there was this aha moment where all of a sudden, I went, oh, wow, there’s going to be an opportunity to explore a relationship with this person. But remember, I was that independent woman who didn’t need a man, I was never going to get married, I was never gonna commit again, done through over that, you know, I’ve done two and done, films, put it away, let’s be done. But I didn’t want to have kids, I had plenty of those. And so, then I was left with this understanding and knowledge about relationships that they’re either growing, or you’re either kind of reaching forward motion, or they’re kind of starting to slough off of it. And I found myself in a huge quandary of like, what am I gonna do here? What? I’m not getting married back, I told him conversation to with exploring our relationship, I just need you to know that I am never going to get married again. Are you good with that? If not, it’s deal killer. That’s how like committed I was. Like, no, no. So as you’re nine months into our exploring relationship back and forth, 600 miles apart, what do you do? When it comes to the place where you know that conversation of kind of going steady, so what are we conversation is coming, and you have so much commitment phobia? It’s, um, believable, like, can’t go there? No, no, nope. No. It was in the throes of this conversation. Literally, in the middle of the night, I was down in my basement because I didn’t want to wake my kids. Tom would call me late at night, we would talk through the night. It just kind of worked for us. He was in California; I was in Utah. We’d go back and forth and had some great times. And again, this relationship was just trying to take on some ferocity and eight, nine months, and I knew it was coming. I just could feel it was coming. And we’re having a great conversation. And you can just feel the energies, like snap, and I’m like, oh, here it goes. He’s gonna say so what are we what are we doing here? Like, are we gonna make a thing out of this or not? And I remember panicking in my panic. I just wanted to bring some humor into it, right? I just Oh, here we go. And he says, So Stacy, what are we? And I I just this litany of my mouth racing was like, I don’t know, I don’t know. How about a lease option, contract or love? I mean, I that’s all I could give. I don’t know that. That’s funny, huh? What if that’s a real thing. And it was actually his genius where he goes, he knows days. Tell me about what that would be. I mean, like this kind of ingenious idea. I was like, really? Like, like, we could do that. And he’s like, why couldn’t wait, right? Why couldn’t we blow up the paradigm and make it our own its own relationship? Would you want to go steady with me? Yeah, yeah, I think I do. So I set about literally taking everything I’d known and everything I’d studied, and all of the places where I felt like I was afraid and needed support. And I wrote up a first lease option contract for love. And I only made it 30 days, you know, we don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves here. But I thought I can get all in for 30 days, right? I can make this work for 30 days. And then if it doesn’t go well, it’s just Hey, then fun. I’m capping out, you can go your way I’ll go mine, no problem. And so we signed it. And it became this place where every week we would do evaluations better relationship and if I was meeting your needs and if you were meeting mine and that became this literally coaching idea where I would say if you could do it more like this, or if you could hold me more like that and and he would do the same and we were literally teaching each other how to love each other best. The conversations that we never have in relationships, the places where we feel like we can never go and saying this is where I’m really at and this is why I’m hurting. Could you just give me this and it was a game changer? We did 30 days and of course I wanted to do 90 days we did 90 days and then I want to lock him up for five years and the thing that was interesting about that whole experience is I realized that it wasn’t commitment that I was afraid that’s what we say right? I’m commitment phobic but wasn’t committed. It meant that I was afraid of it was navigating the inevitable change that my experience had taught me was sure to come. That’s what I didn’t know how to navigate. And if I promise, if I get married, then it becomes this finite stuck in stone experience that I don’t know how to navigate with, even though I know I’m going to change, you’re going to change the relationship, and our circumstances and our lives are going to change. How do you do that? Because I’m not gonna stay the person that I am when I marry you. And when I say to I do it, when we move in together, this whole thing is going to flux. And so that that really was a huge aha moment for me. I was a divorce mediator at the time. And I started using that in my practice, and it worked like a gym, where people could actually get all in and give one last good try at their relationship before they called it quits, knowing and feeling and sensing that they had really done all that they could do. And the wonderful thing about a lease option contract is it tells you why it’s not going to go forward. If you’re not you understand. And you’ve also shared and said all the things that you’ve wanted to say for so long. And you’ve known that they’re hurt, because you’re signing off on that they’re hurt, right. And so, there’s this incredible piece of validation, as well as working with the parts and pieces that truly affect our lives emotionally. And that was that was a game changer for me, that I love to teach and highlight on the work that I do for couples coming together. Right? It’s a new relationship, they want it to go different. They are trying to get over commitment phobia like me, or they’re trying to give it one last run before they decide what they’re going to do next. It works in all those places very, very beautifully.

Victoria Volk  26:47
Wow. Thank you for sharing all of that. Thank you, a lot to digest and go back to and highlight. There’s a couple things that came up for me as I listened to your stories. And I do have a quick question. And actually, I’m going to write a note here. So, I don’t forget one note, I want to come back to when I ask I’m gonna ask you a question. I want to get your thoughts because it’s come up in the circles that I’ve, I’m in? And I just want to hear what your responses. What does it mean to you to be in a relationship with yourself? What does that mean to you?

Staci Bartley  27:31
It’s everything. And I’m going to be so bold as to take this a step further. At the end of the day, the creation that we have all been given this life that we live, right, I draw it on the board for my students as an I am circle, this is me. And every moment of every day, amongst everything that’s possible in the world in the universe, I am re identify who I am in this moment. It happens through a principle called contrast. Contrast is simply the experiences I have is a living human being that says this works for me, this doesn’t work for me, this is me, this is not me. This used to work for me, but this doesn’t work anymore. And whether we realize that or not this ever evolving, unfolding person that we all are and have the beauty and the privilege of being on this planet has number one, the seeds of your creation. It’s your DNA, it knows what you’ve come here to be to do to become to express and it tells us all the time, what that is. And at the end of the day, when it comes to the relationship with myself, it is everything. It is life itself. And at the end of the day, it really doesn’t give two shits about anybody else because it is dedicated to you becoming who you have the capacity to be. That’s it. Relationships are attracted into our lives. And they help show us the places inside of ourselves. Right? And that contrast that work and that don’t work, that we’re shutting down that we’re putting up with it. We’re going along with that we’re right not showing up and it’s constantly nudging us, right? It’s constantly speaking to us, just like our physical body say, I’m tired. I need a drink of water. I gotta poop right? Now figure it out. It says this, isn’t you. Why are you lying? Why are you letting go? or why aren’t you letting go? Why are crumbling, it’s time to go. It’s time to move. Come on. Let’s go. You can do this, right? It’s talking to us all the time. But instead of listening to that, we listen to the exterior around us thinking that they know better than us as our individual selves. I would say the relationship with yourself is life itself. And when you violate that, you violate the being that you are. That’s what I have to say about that.

Victoria Volk  29:57
goosebumps. goosebumps. Because that really speaks to intuition, it speaks to living in integrity with yourself, what you value, honoring your own values, identifying when your values are being dishonored, all of that. That’s brilliant. I love how you just so eloquently set it to.

Staci Bartley  30:19
Well, thank you I think the the thing about relationships that really trips us up is that we’re trying to do them in a manner of pleasing someone else. And that if I sacrifice myself right, love is sacrifice, we say it’s a choice, we have all these little stories I would say about what love is, and love is permission. And I really want your listeners to hear that permission is what love is unconditional love is not sacrifice of self or obligation, it’s not sacrificing myself to please you. And when you’re happy than I can be. Those are all the places of manipulation where we get hung up in personalization, etc. And those are the places where we, we hear all the mental health challenges that come as a byproduct of our relationships, right? The gaslighting the gnarly, you know, all the common labels that we have in the mental health world, around my relationship with so and so the real problem is, is that it’s it’s a form of manipulation. And you think that by making them happy or finding a person that you can make happy is going to make you happy, know, what’s going to make you happy, is you aligning with who you are and who you have the capacity to be, and learning how to listen to that creation that you are. Because that’s new life for the person for each of us individually. relationships, I love to say they are the best personal growth vehicle on the planet. If you want to do some personal growth, you want to put it on steroids. Just get it into a relationship, it’ll take care of everything. It’ll bring up all your insecurities, all your fears, your shortcomings, all the things that you want to pull your hair out about. Right, it gives you more, it gives you more everything, more problems to solve more challenges to face. Yes, more love has the potential to give you more acceptance, more more comfort, like there’s a lot of more in there on the good side, too. It’s not just that, but we think that it’s going to solve our life’s problems and not realize what the what it is, is the vehicle that it truly is in our lives, right? The gifts and why we attract it into our lives is just to help us grow. It’s to help us to become who we are. And like I already said, our soul, our self, the person you have the capacity to be really doesn’t care about anybody else. It’s dedicated to you becoming who you have the capacity to be in this very short window, you have to live. Right? Are you going to do it? Are you going to go for it? Are you gonna be it? Are you going to sacrifice and give it to somebody else? And I tell you what it will kick your fanny. If that’s your choice, you can try that it will continue to kick your fanny until the day leave this planet.

Victoria Volk  33:00
Do you think it’s possible then? If relationships aren’t like this self growth vehicle that we sign up for? Do you think it’s possible that you can do that in partnership with someone else? And stay together? I mean, obviously, there’s people that are married 50-60 years, right? Are they married 50-60 years because they have this secret sauce or secret secret that no one else knows? Like? Can you speak to that?

Staci Bartley  33:33
Yes, I love that question. So just for the record, I’m married, and I’ve been with my partner for 10 years, Tom, but same guys on the porch. Yes, absolutely. You can do it in partnership. And you can do it for lifelong partnership. And love. Remember what I said just a moment ago is permission. It’s permission for me to be me. And to feel the way I feel by nature that I need to get that permission to you too. It’s not a one-way street here. You get to have the permission to if I really love you to feel the way you feel, and to be where you are to have the needs and the struggles that you have to. My only job in partnership with you is it would be as a friend, as a lover, as a as a daughter as a business partner, right? My only my only position I can take is somebody of support. It’s not my job to fix you. It’s not my job to figure that out for you. What’s going on. My only place with inside of working with myself is to support you. And you becoming all that you can be to as I do the work of doing what I can be. And then this whole relationship experience takes on a totally different trajectory. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s not about right, who which way we should go when we fight and argue about that. It becomes everybody has a peace of mind. attribute into the relationship, it becomes a conversation that sounds like this. So, what do you got? This is what I got. Where are you? This is where I’m at what’s possible now? Oh, wow, okay, well hold on that one. What now? What do you got it? Where are you? It’s Hawaii, you look like you’re struggling? How can I support you today? What do you need? Is there anything I can do to make your life better? And sometimes it’s just leave me alone. I can’t, I can’t ship that to you right now. I’m sorry. The biggest problem that I see in relationships is there’s no permission to say no, there’s no permission to be where you are. And there’s no permission to meet what you need when you need it. It’s run-on manipulation and leverage, nine times out of 10. And it’s not our fault. It’s what we’ve been taught in our society. manipulation is the systems that we have been raised in. And I want to create a little clarity, if I may, there, Victoria. But the end of the day manipulation is really simple. It seems complicated, it seems scary. We’ll grab our chest and go, oh, I don’t do that. Yes, you do. You’re a human being. That’s what we do. Because we don’t know how to ask for our needs to be met, we manipulate, we drop a hint, we write we kind of try and coerce we, we spend a great story so that you’ll finally give me what it is I say I want but at the end of the day manipulation is just one price. If you’ll do what I say, you’ll get what you want. And we’re all vying for the same position, because that’s the power position where I get to call the shots. And this is what escalates our conversations, and we dangle what it is you want, so that I can enroll you in doing what I need you to do, it’s gonna make me feel better. And that plays out in our, you know, our work system. You’ve got to work good paycheck; I’ll give you what you want. Just what you want, you want money, right? Okay, do this job you don’t like, and I’ll give you some money. What about our legal system, you’ll obey the rules, you’ll have your freedom, we won’t lock you up in our classrooms, right? You do the course curriculum, you get good grades, and I’m giving you your diploma. There’s always this kind of tit for tat, that we play in our society. And we even raise our families, that way, I have raised my kids that way. And to get chores done, you can take the car, and go to your friend’s house, I’ll give you your allowance, right? There’s, there’s all of this, do what I say, and you’ll get what you want, even in love. If you do what I say, I’ll accept you, I love you, I’ll be there for you. I’ll hold you, we can have sex tonight, there’s always leverage points, where I’m leveraging my relationship with my mother. And we don’t even realize we’re doing it because it is so taught in our society.

Victoria Volk  37:40
So, what do you do about it?

Staci Bartley  37:43
You start the permission of, hey, this is where I’m at where you told me about that? Let’s learn, it becomes more of a conversation for understanding instead of who’s right and who’s wrong. Who’s got it all figured out? Or whose way is best? Everybody’s ways best. And if we could hear and understand those parts and pieces, there would be a whole new way that would birth to get us through it. Just like the lease option contract for love. Let’s go back to that as an example. What was the pressure? Tom could have just as easily leveraged you into a place where you want me, then you’d better get in? Because this door leaving. That’s manipulation. Instead of saying, hey, you’re panicking, you’re freaking out right now. Like you have a lot of commitment phobia here. Now, he could have also said, You’re a hot mess girlfriend. I don’t want anything to do with that still killer. Next, you could have done that, too. Right? Could have leveraged on either side of that. But that’s not what happened. Let me share. And I could tell him how afraid I was, I could share with him that this was a terrifying moment for me. And I didn’t know how to navigate it, which was the truth. Right? And then I could say, Oh, no, no. What about this idea? Anyway, that’s a really great idea. Let’s see where it takes us. Let’s go I’m in. And we created something that was completely different than any of the paradigms out there, which could happen in our human experiences more often, just like we do in tech, just like we do with new software. Relationships really aren’t a different container in our lives. The principles that apply everywhere else in our lives approach applies here in relationships as well. We just don’t use them. We think it has to go a certain way according to the story and the narrative that we’ve been taught. And we force ourselves into being people that were not in the hopes that we’ll be loved. Which to me is the greatest tragedy of all right? I’ve lived that. I’ve tried to push myself into being something that I was not so that I could, you know, help my family recover. Repair from the grief that I created for them the ripples that went out and shops, right then the extended family. I tried to do my best to be something that I wasn’t in it didn’t work it actually created More health challenges and break down for me as it does for all of us. Right? So there has to be permission, we have to take these paradigms of, you know, person meets person, we get married, we have babies, right? And if we, do it right, and if you’re right, and I’m right, we’re going to live happily ever after. That is a story. But that story is a lie. It’s like the Santa Claus story. It’s not reality, as we all try and force ourselves into these paradigms that we know we’re not what we think, what’s the other way? What else are we supposed to do? How do you create a committed relationship and partnership, if you don’t do x? There’s lots of ways, but we don’t entertain those kinds of conversations. There’s no permission at all.

Victoria Volk  40:48
It sounds like to me like this contract for love is very much moldable to each individual, what they contribute and what they want to bring to the relationship or what they do bring to the relationship. Is that accurate in saying that it can work for anybody? Like it’s not like this prescription? of do this, do that, do this, do that? And you’ll end up with why you know, x plus, you know, z equals y, whatever it is? I don’t remember that. But I mean, is that accurate? insane?

Staci Bartley  41:22
100% accurate? We use it for multicultural couples, we use it for interracial couples, we use it for couples who have different religious backgrounds, cultural backgrounds. Because it is it all it is is you discovering and uncovering what you need and want out of this relationship emotionally. Right? It’s, and then you let the other person reveal that that’s the process. So, whatever is in that lease option, contract is a byproduct of who you see yourself as in this moment. And then it will constantly evolve and grow with you through time. Because that’s all going to change. All of its going to change. That’s why you, you want to do evaluations, but you also want to do evaluation. So, you can say, hey, I really, really want to get good at this. I mean, that’s the thing is when we step into relationships, and release, let’s say we we stepped to the altar, and we’re trying to live that story of marriage, and I’m not anti marriage, I’m married. When we step to say, hey, I do, I want to give my life to you. As human beings, we’re really stepping forward and saying, I really want to give us my best shot. I really want this to go well. We’re not saying hey, I’m gonna really screw you over the day, I step up to that altar. I’m not saying that, saying, I really want to do my best here, right? And if we could be honest, we would say I’m, I’m terrified, right? I don’t know how this is gonna go. But I’m willing to take a gamble on it, right. And that’s where the lease option contract for me gave me so much comfort, because I knew I could come back. And we can talk about what worked and what didn’t work for me. And you could do the same. And I would teach you, which is our responsibility as a human being. It’s our responsibility to teach each other how to love ourselves best, we’re the only ones that know what anyone wants to know what we need. And what are we taught instead, to make a checklist, check all the boxes, right? And it’s usually the physical aspects, or they gotta have money, and they got to be sexy, they got to be a hunk, or right, they got to come from a good family, they got to be a certain religion, none of those things are going to do anything for you, at the end of the day, when you start talking about the emotional experience you’re going to have in your relationship. What about all of that, because if that goes haywire, you’re really not going to care about the money, I have lost the couples who come home to empty houses, and yet the wives have given everything on the planet. I’m not going to make it to church because I can’t get my Fanny out of the bed. It’s not going to matter, right? I’m not going to be able to, you know, see some of these co creations called our kids through because we’re a hot mess. We can’t be there for him. So, you don’t have anything to contribute. And yet we use those benchmarks circumstantially as, oh, this is good person. reality is we’re all good people. We are all doing the very best, we know how. And until we know how to do better, we will do what we know. And when our backs get pressed against the wall emotionally, what most of us know is some form of manipulation, leverage, defense, attack, personalization. Those are the things that have been modeled to us. Not permission. Not a place where I say, hey, you’re really struggling, what do you need? How can I support you? You don’t know how, okay, well, I’m right here and you let me know and I’ll be ready. And then I if I’m on a support person, or role, I’m going to go, go be happy, I better go be happy because there’s going to be an emotional drain from a loved one that’s going to be required of me if I want to truly support them, I better keep my own wills together, right? If only I can do that. There’s only going to be me that knows how I want you to hold Me for touch me for comfort me. For those specific words, I need you to say to me when I’m hurting, I’ve literally taught Tom to come up from behind me, when I’m turning into a hot mess, doesn’t matter if it’s fine or I’m having a bad day, kiss me on the back of my neck, and whisper in my ear state, we got this, because that’s what I need to hear, regardless of what’s breaking down inside of me, right? And every single time even though I’ve taught it to him, and it’s as unromantic, as unromantic can be, it works every single time. And he has one for me, too. And as it changes and evolves, we can play around with it. I don’t like that, oh, yeah, it’s kind of like getting somebody to finally scratch your itch, you know, like, oh, that is the best. And there’s only one person in the whole wide world who knows what that is. And that’s us, individually. So that relationship with ourselves becomes so, so so important.

Victoria Volk  45:54
The one thing and the one word that really came up, and is kind of like the crux of everything is change, right? And that’s a grief is a change in a familiar pattern of behavior, right? Its grief is inevitable in our lives. And based on what you’ve shared in relationships, as well. And so, when we’re not feeling like those needs are being met, or not feeling like we’re, we personally feel like we have shame or guilt because we’re not meeting the needs of the person that we said, we would love for the rest of our lives. There’s guilt and shame in that there’s grief there. So, it’s just one big hot mess. Grief pot, right? Until we can become emotionally honest.

Staci Bartley  46:41
Yes

Victoria Volk  46:42
That’s really what it’s about is becoming emotionally honest.

Staci Bartley  46:45
Oh, I love that you said that word. You are so brilliant. Yes, it’s absolutely becoming emotionally honest. And I have a process in my work called emotional weightlifting. Because most of us are so so very weak when it comes to our emotional bodies. In fact, a lot of us don’t even realize we have emotional bodies, we have a physical body, we have an emotional body, the one is invisible, right, and we feel it, we know it’s there. And then we have this physical body that we give a lot of time and attention to typically. And that’s our navigation system. And we don’t know how to create strengthen our emotional bodies, like we would go for a physical workout. And so, we have an emotional weightlifting gym, where it’s, it’s, of course, emotional, but it’s it’s learning how to show up. It’s learning how to own your emotions. state where you are, give yourself that permission to just look and see inside what those are. Because when it comes to relationships, the hardest thing for us to do for ourselves, the relationship with ourselves or others, is to just simply amass the courage to show up and tell the truth, right, like you said that emotional honesty is the thing that’s going to hunt us down. It’s the thing that’s going to kick our Fannie’s again and again and again. Man, I’ve had my Fanny kicked over that one so many times. the whole pregnancy and such right.

Victoria Volk  48:14
I have a follow up question of that. And that, what if you’re doing the work, you’re personally showing up in that way and working on yourself and trying to understand yourself and working through that stuff. But your partner is kind of stagnant? They’re not really jiving on the whole personal development work on myself. Let’s figure this out. You know, they’re not on the same page, what do you do, then?

Staci Bartley  48:44
I won’t either think about the only thing you can do is that support where we talked about, right? And be a demonstration and the demonstration is far better than the words that are going to come out of your mouth. And one or two things is going to happen. Because believe me, if in partnerships, if somebody is starting to grow and outpace the partner, everybody knows. And oftentimes that’s what shuts the other person down. Because they’re afraid to go there. And they’re hoping that they can enroll you in not going where it is you need to go. I had a I had a beautiful relationship that taught me this front and center. I was I was I was at the height of understanding a lot of things about myself and my own personal growth journey. And he was terrified to go there. He did not want to go there because why? Why would that happen? Because they don’t want to confront themselves. It really doesn’t have anything to do with loving you and not loving because they’ve got their own process to sort out with inside of themselves. Remember that relationship with self. Well, that one’s a hot mess. And they know that in order to grow just like you are growing, they’re going to have to confront look at some things with inside of themselves. And I just Need, I just need you to ponder the question for a minute, who are we to tell anybody what time and when to do that work? That my job is their job. It’s their relationship with themselves. It’s their connection to whatever we call the divine universe, God spirit. It’s not my job to enroll them, coerce them, convince them, but I can invite them. And I can be a demonstration of what that looks like. And then yes, the truth is the part that we never talked about is there may come a point in time where that relationship will not be able to write survive, it will separate. But here’s the mind Bender, who’s to say that’s a bad thing. Those are off times that catalytic events in our lives that then go, Oh, I can’t tell you how many partners all of a sudden, once they say, I’m not going to stay in this relationship, this is over. Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’m going to go there. And that’s what it took for them to finally be willing to raise their hand and say, Okay, I’m going to come to the table, I was so scared. I’m so scared. That’s what’s written on the show. I am so terrified to look at myself and to go there into those places that I need. I know I need to go in order to be where you are and showing me what you’re accomplishing. And maybe sometimes take something like that right? You think I think that’s the upside of grief, don’t you? Don’t you think that’s the upside of grief is that those grief moments are the catalytic moments that causes us to see things or be willing to do things that maybe we were never willing to do before. I was too afraid to confront others too afraid to say that I was too afraid to go there. And it finally gets so painful you go Screw it, okay, whatever. Come and claim I’m going to tell you the truth, right? If we didn’t have that pain as the characteristic like push us sometimes like those little edges, we know we need to jump off but we’re just too afraid to do so, we wouldn’t do it we even do it.

Victoria Volk  52:01
We even resist that for, we can resist that for decades though too

Staci Bartley  52:09
Yeah, long as possible, long as possible we’re going to try and get over it under it around it right out skirted lie about it, pretend it doesn’t exist, I mean you know we have our little things and finally, when something like that that’s important to us, we’re gonna see a lot of catalytic events now just because of the post COVID thing you know, historically these are moments where people are going to finally jump in and get married or jump into have that baby or in their relationship enough because we’ve come front to front with our mortality, right we come face to face with crap, I can’t take the pain anymore. Screw it. It’s there’s no a lot to think about there but but everything transforms jobs let get let go of that aren’t a good fit. Once I get into them, I they were a good fit for a while and now they’re not right businesses that I start some of them startups some of them I need to let go of some family members I was really close to I let go write some letters I am close to I let go up. And when you think about it, that’s just as normal and natural as other things in this world.

Victoria Volk  53:18
I had this picture come into my mind that’s like when you’re, when you’re in the mess within the thick of it, it’s really hard to see the start line. And I don’t say the finish line, I say the start line because that’s really when your life starts. When you decide that you’re ready to just clean up the mess. It’s like I was telling my kids, you make a mess, you clean it up. And that was such a as you’re speaking to it’s like that as an analogy for life. You make a mess; you clean it up. Whether it’s within yourself in your relationships, you know, you need to apologize, apologize, you made a mess, apologize. Often oftentimes if you know if we think we need forgiveness, oftentimes we need to apologize for something,

Staci Bartley  54:01
Even with inside of ourselves, you know, sometimes when I when I feel like I’ve hurt somebody’s feelings, or I realized I want to I want to do over I call them do overs. I want to want to take another crack at that that didn’t go the way I wanted it to go or what I intended to communicate came out wrong, right? We don’t realize that in cleaning up those emotional messages because we don’t talk about them. We don’t talk about how to clean up emotional messes. Where do you go to learn that? We don’t realize that we can create a deal over and so in real time call up a friend and say hey, I just really want to apologize about what just happened or what was said and, and inevitably nine times out of 10 they’ll get Oh no, no, no, it’s really no problem. You know, he didn’t do that at all. They’re trying to comfort me. And then I’ll say please just just hear me. I appreciate that. That didn’t come across the way I feel like it did. I’m actually cleaning this up for me. I need to tell you, I’m sorry that did not go the way I want in a bit to go. And thank you for letting me do that we don’t realize sometimes that’s a gift for the person who’s wanting to clean up a mess for themselves. Remember, it all goes back to that relationship with ourselves. So, like, I need to do this for me. And I need you to be able to do this for me. And we don’t realize what a gift that is that we give to others. Love In addition to being permission is really the ability to give and receive. And if we get stuck on either side of that equation, it’s going to be rough with Lima. I never give her Gover Gover, Gover and don’t ever allow myself to receive, that’s going to be a problem if I’m a receiver, receiver receiver. And I never allow myself to learn how to give, that’s going to be a problem. But you want to be able to adapt and have the ability to do both and learn in practice when and how to do both. And we want to be able to learn how to clean up our messes because they’re inevitable. They are so inevitable it’s going to love is the grandest journey and it is the messiest journey on the planet. And we’ve got to learn to be okay with that. But there is not anything perfect about it. Right. And yet, that’s the pursuit of trying to be perfect. I have a perfect partner a perfect this perfect that it doesn’t exist. It’s just a story. It’s a great story. I like the story. But it’s just a story the end of the day.

Victoria Volk  56:17
Let’s talk about story as well, like stemming in childhood because we’re like really getting long on time. So, it’s okay to go here real quick. But just talking about the stories that we are born into and raised around about grief about what, what it’s like to love and be loved. And how ingrained in our DNA that that kind of becomes, and how we kind of live into that. Because I know for you personally as well. You didn’t have your father in your formidable years. And so, and then when you had a stepfather, it was like, Nope, just go along, get on your way. So, do you feel like how you approached relationships with the opposite sex was greatly shaped by that childhood experience?

Staci Bartley  57:17
Yeah, absolutely. Losing a person as a child, set me on the path to realizing how important and precious relationships really were. I remember this moment where the casket of my, or the lid of my dad’s casket was closing. And I thought that wasn’t my blankie that I saw love that always gave me comfort I wanted, right, it wasn’t my favorite toys, my favorite dolls, my doll house wasn’t my stuffed animals on the bed, it was just my dad. And you realize, man, that’s the most precious thing I have as a kid, and it kind of sets us off. And I set me off on a path initially of just being a pleaser, all I have to do is please make people happy. And then I’m gonna always have people that I love in my life. Until that didn’t work. And so, then I swung obviously to the other side saying, okay, what’s going to be done at my terms and a crack the whip, you know, the my rules, my way or the highway, like didn’t work either. Right? It doesn’t, and absolutely shapes you and I think you crave that attention from from a male person, right? You want that love and that acceptance and appreciation, and we make it up. But it has to come from that without realizing what I really needed was me. I even remember being a single person after my first divorce. And I really, really believed with all my kids that all I needed to do was insert a man here and then it was all gonna work out it was all gonna be okay. Looking back, you know, my kids didn’t need a man in their life. That’s not what they needed. They needed me. You didn’t need to be there for them to be whole and happy and joyful, so that I had something to pour into them. Fine, frantically running around a hot mess, trying to find mount insert here thinking that’s gonna make my family perfect. They needed me, wasn’t it? Right? It was that simple. And so we make up these things that we think we need that are going to be a life changing moment. And you have to realize there isn’t a life changing moment. Life that’s going to march on day in and day out. Thank goodness with the renewal process. That is to give us another chance to get up to go to try again. It’s going to be messy, and we got to get good with that we’ve got to let go of this idea of perfect getting it all right. Love to say there’s nothing wrong with you. We are not broken as human beings. We are amazing and resilient and capable and strong. We are so courageous so much more than we even realize. What we don’t have is the ability to understand how to navigate when it hurts and to talk about that and to share without that, and to realize that it’s part of the journey, we heard emotionally, we think we’ve done something wrong. Well, he wouldn’t think like, if you cut your finger, you’d done something wrong. I mean, it was unfortunate, but you wouldn’t think you were a bad person because you accidentally were chopping a tomato and cut your finger, you would address the pain, you would look at it, you would remedy it, and you would take care of it and move on. And so, it must become with our emotional pain to write. We sweep it up, we make amends, We, we say what we need to say, we get the comfort that we need. And we sweep it up, and we put it in the trash can and we leave it in the trash can unfortunately, with our emotions, sometimes we have a tendency to dig back through, I think, miss something, right?

Victoria Volk  1:00:46
Or I gotta keep it just in case, I might need this emotion later.

Staci Bartley  1:00:53
Exactly. And instead of realizing, look, if it’s a problem, it’s gonna show up again, down the future, just I might cut my finger again, might happen, but I worry about it, I’m probably more likely to cut it again. And again, and again, right there were noticed that get really nervous about cut it again and again and again until you realize to find some use with it, right? So, I say we got to take out our emotional trash, we have to leave it in the can leave it there. And that’s hard for us. We think we understand we’re missing, sift through it one more time. No, just if it’s a problem, it’ll show up down the road, just go. Right, and then we’ll address it then and not one second before because unfortunately, we spend a lot of time worrying about things that are going to happen again. And then we missed the rest period. And then when that happens again, right? It happens again, I’m like, so I’m always living in this place where it’s happened. And it’s happened again and again and again, that realizing it’s because of the way I’m holding it. I won’t take the trash out, let it be. And that’s a conversation that we talk a lot about in the work that I do with affairs, you know, infidelity and betrayal. Right, that’s a huge part of broken hearts. We’re afraid that if we let go of it, that we’re going to be in pain without telling the truth that actually you’re in pain right now. Like, right? You’re so worried that’s going to happen again, you’re in pain, you’re not allowing yourself to enjoy what’s like refreshing. What’s happening, that’s different. Now enjoy it, get it all over. You love it. And if it happens down the road, we’ll address it again then. But you’re not going to stop it from happening. You’re just going to live as though it’s happened again already right now.

Victoria Volk  1:02:32
Yeah, it doesn’t matter if it does again, because you’re already feeling it in your mind in your heart.

Staci Bartley  1:02:37
And your body’s already paying the price for it.

Victoria Volk  1:02:40
Unnecessary suffering that we inflict on ourselves, right?

Staci Bartley  1:02:44
Yeah, I think well, who was it that said, there’s a there’s a wonderful woman who said, I wish I could remember her name. I can’t right now it’s not coming to me. You can’t hurt me. That’s my job. I take care of that perfectly fine. Good luck. I got Intel info you are you don’t even have access too.

Victoria Volk  1:03:07
So, what would you say? All of these lessons in grief? Because really, it’s a lot of grief and your stories threaded through them all? What have they taught you the most?

Staci Bartley  1:03:21
The thing that comes to mind is an experience a gift that my mom gave me as a really young girl. So, if I may, I’m gonna answer your question by just sharing this one last thought was the day after my dad’s funeral. And my brothers and sister and I were sitting around in our living room, wondering what happens next. Right? funerals over everybody’s gone home. The dishes have been washed. And it was just this quiet, eerie moment after the funeral where we were all sitting together wondering if Christmas was gonna happen or vacations. birthdays, I mean, how does life go on for a parent, we need to know. When we were in the throes of this conversation. My mom was to hurt us in her bedroom, which is right next door living. We have this big, beautiful window and this bright orange carpet. That was kind of a thing back in the 70s. And she came out of her bedroom, walked into the living room, and I’ll never forget her opening up the curtains on that big, beautiful window. And she said, I’ve heard what you’re saying. I reassure you, the sun will shine in this house, whether it is shining outside or not. She will go on and we live, and we will find happiness again. And I remember that just seems so comforting. Like Okay, I guess you just go again. I guess you just pick up and find the sunshine, the sunshine, whatever little bright spot you can claim to in the moment to just put one foot in front of the other and go again. And I think I think that’s what I’d like to leave with is it’s about that, right? Just like it’s difficult for us to show up in our really ships and say, well, we need to say sometimes it’s difficult for us to show up for ourselves. But if we just have a teeny tiny bit of courage to just get up and try again, the rest of it will ironically take care of itself. Right? The sun will shine. Yes, there will be storms and thunderstorms and cloudy days, we think, gosh, well, this time of year shine again, remember, it always does, we can just hang in there long enough, right. And I find it much easier for myself to move to keep going right to learn to grow, to have conversations to connect to just stay in motion. That for me has created the momentum that I’ve needed in order to just keep putting that one foot in front of the other so that I can find that ray of sunshine again. It doesn’t have to be shining outside in order to shine.

Victoria Volk  1:05:55
That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else? I mean, there’s so many questions I would have loved to have gotten to I think we’ll just have to do this again.

Staci Bartley  1:06:07
Yeah, let’s come back and do it again. I want your listeners to know that they are hackable human beings. They’re beautiful, they’re brilliant. It’s nothing wrong. Just that your staff, your hearts been broken. And our hearts are so resilient. It’s our minds that won’t allow us to go on our emotional bodies, they can heal from anything they are selling. They’re strong, they’re courageous, they have the capacity and the know how to heal. It’s our minds that say oh, that’s not possible. Can’t go there can’t do that. That’s not gonna happen. Don’t let your mind convince you. What your heart already knows to be true. You got this you can do the best you can overcome anything and when I say anything, I mean anything. Because you’re a human being as being a human being. You are amazing. You are bold, amazing and so capable of so much more than you think you are. So go for it. Get up and go again. And I’m sure you’re going to be surprised at what you learn to discover by yourself. Just as we all are when we’re going through hell right you look back and go I really am kind of grateful for that experience. Wouldn’t want to admit I wouldn’t want to do it again but I wouldn’t want to miss it. And by the way I got pregnant three times out of wedlock like three times it took me three rounds to learn this lesson. Right after that, you are enough you can do enough you can be enough and it’s not about getting a perfect it’s about getting up and going again and loving with all your heart is primarily yourself. yourself first.

Victoria Volk  1:08:04
Perfectly said it needs nothing else added. Thank you so much.

Staci Bartley  1:08:10
My pleasure.

Victoria Volk  1:08:11
Where can people reach you or find you, they’d like to connect with you?

Staci Bartley  1:08:17
Yeah, there’s several places were all over social media. But I think if you enjoyed this conversation you want to learn more. The best place for you to go would be to look my podcast up the air on kk and w 1150. Every Thursday at 1pm PST. And I’m on all the way anywhere you find your podcast, you can look and search for Love Shack live. It’s a place where we come back, and we talk about the realities of relationships. We talk about the conversations that really impact our lives when it comes to love. And also, you can go to my website at stacibartley.com and Stacy’s only thing I got a style right stacibartley.com, love shack live, you can Google my name on our website.

Victoria Volk  1:09:02
And you’ll find those resources also in the show notes. Thank you again, Stacy.

Staci Bartley  1:09:10
My pleasure.

Victoria Volk  1:09:11
And remember when you unleash your life, you unleash your heart. Much love.