003. Dating, Dragons, and Divorce with Jose Reyes
Each week, you will either here me talk about a specific topic or I will bring on a guest to share their wisdom with us. this was a very special conversation that i want to share with you today.
LISTEN NOW AND SUBSCRIBE
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon
Jose is one of my favorite men on the planet. As you will hear, he has a really warm, masculine presence. We recently met through the Elementum Coaching Institute. Jose is a fellow coach, entrepreneur, co-creator and formulator at the supplement company Bucked Up and the dad of two girls.
In this episode, we talk about dating, dragons, divorce, fatherhood, the divine feminine and the divine masculine, documents and more.
“When I’m dating, I would rather have you get to know the real me so you can make a decision on whether or not I'm for you. That way you don't have to figure it out in six months. I'd rather just have, you know, right off the bat, I don't want to waste your time and, infinitely worse, my time.”
We talk about just being yourself because the number one thing that you need is somebody's comfort and trust and if you're not cultivating an environment where that can happen, all that other externals don't matter. By trying to be perfect we are also subconsciously telling the person we are on a date with that they have to be perfect, too, and are not able to be present and enjoy the moment.
Jose shares that he feels like, especially for men, pornography is a huge detriment for a ton of reasons; the biggest one that there is this sense of entitlement to a woman's body. Porn will show you the visceral aspects of sex, but it doesn't show the other 23 hours of the day it takes to build that rapport.
“Because of porn we do focus so much on performance and all the physical And we lose so much of the connection, the sacredness of it.”
We also get into shame around the menstrual cycle when really it holds the magic of life and creation. And literally everyone, men and women, exists because of a woman. We also talk about shame around seeing someone else naked and that it is really about feeling comfortable in our own bodies and accepting all part of us.
Jose shares his story about being brought to America from Mexico by his mom when he was 6 or 7 as an undocumented or “illegal” immigrant and how he didn’t realize he was different until it came time for him as an adult to enter the workforce.
“I couldn't wrap my head around the concept that there was such a thing as an illegal human.”
His mom got him forged paperwork, so he was able to start working… until eventually, he got caught. He got arrested and had to go through court trials and court processes. After a couple of years, the judge offered him a deal to sort out his situation in the next two years, and if he gets legal status, he would be able to stay. If not, he would get picked up after the two years and spend three years in prison and then get deported. Luckily, within the two years, he was able to sort it out, get legal status and start working. Fast forward, Jose ends up co-creating a big successful company that's international and hundreds of employees. He overcame the odds. The American dream. By that point, he feels like he has it.
But then my life started to unravel. He was in a marriage that was really great for three to five years or so. But what he didn't know at the time was that he had experienced a lot of trauma that he hadn’t healed and he wasn’t able to communicate that to his wife and to work on the relationship. Eventually, it explodes and they file for divorce.
“My divorce is the hardest thing I've ever done. And the scariest. And I've been undocumented in jail, awaiting deportation.”
Jose then moves into his friend's guest house. Not with his kids anymore. Not with his ex wife anymore. Feeling like the villain in his narrative. At his rock bottom.
“We all have the ability to decide our rock bottom. From here, it only goes up. I will not be lower than this moment ever again in my life. That's something we can all decide.”
And you can build on rock. He starts reading books, going to therapy, building a healthy routine, going outside, moving his body. Even tries to make himself such a catch and so irresistible that his ex wife will want him back. And if she doesn't, then at least he became this better man. It didn't work out with his ex wife, but he became that dude.
“You have to be accountable. You're your own villain. That is the key to becoming your own hero is that you have to realize that you're in control of it.”
Jose shares the top three things he learned about himself from his rock bottom moment on: choosing his rock bottom, not playing a role in dimming a girl’s light and accountability.
Oftentimes we don't realize the armor that we build up in order not to feel the pain. However, that also means we are not feeling the love to full extent. Jose says that his divorce wounded that armor or his representative so bad that that it was his window. Some people never take advantage of it. It was like the death of a part of him so a new version of him could be born.
Jose shares that he observed with her that the vast majority of the time little girls look at men with this awe. Who are these magical, hairy, weird smelling creatures? They have this vision of men until one day a man comes along and shatters that image of men and all of a sudden men feel like danger. It switches them into that mode sometimes forever. Obviously there is physical abuse, sexual abuse. But what men don't realize is that it can be hostility. It can be yelling. It can be that energy where people feel like they have to be on eggshells for you all the time. That can dim a girl's light. His goal with his daughters is to keep that magic, that spark, that's inside of them going. Because hostile dads turn into hostile boyfriends and hostile bosses which cultivates an environment where women constantly have to put that spark away. Sometimes it just disappears for forever.
“I was no longer one of those guys. I'm not saying I'm not perfect or that I won't ever slip up, but I can be aware of it and try my hardest. “
He says, he also had to realize that he was one of those guys. He had to be straight up with it. The accountability.
We get into fatherhood which has given Jose this sense of purpose or fulfillment and made him realize that materialistic things are less important. It’s constant service to his daugthers. It keeps your priorities straight. It got him to step my game up and make all these changes. Being a dad also really made him have this new awe for the divine feminine when he realized the power of a mother’s love. It's a whole different thing. It's infinite.
“So it's like, I don't love my daughter as much as my mom loves me. That doesn't mean that I don't love with all my being. It just means that female power, female divinity is just different.”
Seeing it in his daughter's gave me the ability to see it in all women. Every guy has depended on a woman for life. It used to scare him, and now he’s stoked on it. Happy to have access to it all the time, whether it's in friends, family, my children, lovers, romantic partners. By loosing the fear of it and he became this container that has access to it now. It's like if every guy could just drop the fear of it and embrace it. Guess what? You get access to all of it.
We talk about that the masculine also deserves admiration and being cherished. I talk about the making a man your hero exercise which I have found to bring me so much joy when a man takes care of something for me and I acknowledge him for it.
At the end of the episode we share our one word of advice for healthy partnership. Jose’s is “fucking feel” and communicate how you are feeling to your partner. Mine is willingness to keep showing up for the relationship.
“Deep down guys are like service dogs. We just want you to throw the ball. We just want to hurt the sheep like we just want to be the man that's it. That will appease so many of us.”
We, women, get to allow men to be that because why wouldn't we?
I am here to support you on your journey. Apply for 1:1 coaching with me and we will jump on a call to see if we feel good with each other.
