Ep #354: Romantic Relationships

You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 354.

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Well, hello, my friends. I’m excited for this podcast today. It’s going to be short, but I’m going to talk about romantic relationships. And it’s going to be more of an intro into the romantic relationship realm because I have scheduled a series of six calls that I’m going to be doing in Scholars, where we are going to be having discussions on romantic relationships.

I’m a little bit obsessed with this topic right now because usually whatever I’m going through and whatever I’m experiencing in my own life is what I want to teach about, what I want to think about, what I want to offer about, all my own self-development.

I’ve had many of you asking me questions and wanting to know what’s going on with me and wanting to understand kind of the trajectory of the past couple of years of my life and what I’m doing right now in terms of my relationships. And I want to share all of that with you in detail. And we’re going to be doing that in Scholars.

And I want to give you some details of what that’s going to be like. And I also want to talk about, on this podcast, some of the topics and concepts that have come up that I find to be super-fascinating.

Let me first just give you some background about what’s been going on with me. I’ve been talking about it on the podcast, but just in case you don’t listen to every single podcast, I’ll kind of fill you in.

My children, last year – it’s crazy to call them children now because they’re like adults – left to go to college. And around that same time, Chris Castillo, who was my husband, and I decided that we wanted to separate and no longer have a romantic relationship.

And the way that we did that process was very kind, very loving, very thorough. And many of you have asked me about that process and how we handled that and what kind of led to that.

And I haven’t talked about it too much on the podcast. There needed to be some time for us to process and time for us to heal. And I will be talking about that more as this year goes on. But suffice to say we separated and divorced and we are still very good friends. We’re still coparents. We just spent Christmas together with the kids and my new boyfriend, who I’ll tell you about here in a minute.

But basically, what happened is we separated and divorced. And then I took some time to just be with myself, to be alone in relationship with myself. And I spent the summer in Colorado, in my home in Colorado by myself with my dogs and did a lot of soul-searching work on myself.

Through the past, I would say three years, I’ve been having what I’ve been calling a midlife crisis awakening, where I’ve kind of had an identity crisis, which is very normal for many women my age, many men my age who have seen themselves as a mother for so long and as a mother in the home with the children in the home. and then, when the kids leave, for me there was a huge shift in my relationship with myself, my relationship with my kids, and my relationship with my husband Chris.

We had always been parenting together, making parenting decisions together and being a family together the four of us. And when the kids left and it was just me and Chris in the house, we had, like, a very different experience of what it was like to live together in that home and decide what we wanted for our future.

So, as I spent this time alone, I learned a lot about what it means to be embarking on the second half of my life. And that’s the way I like to look at it. I’m almost 50 years old. I have a vision that I’ll live to about 100. And I’m kind of embarking on that second half of my life.

And so, I did a lot of really healing, wonderful exercises and practices with myself to understand myself more, to ask myself what I wanted, to kind of reflect on what I had created in my life, what was going on with my business, to appreciate what I had created with my boys and my family and to also look forward to what I wanted in the future.

I didn’t do any dating for a long time. I just spent time alone. I wasn’t looking to date. I wasn’t trying to find anyone to date. I wasn’t doing any of that.

And then, I had a friend recommend to me that I should try and go on some of the dating apps. And this was about a year in, I think, six months to a year. And I had felt nervous to do that because a lot of times when I’m out, people will recognize me and I was just nervous about that happening.

And one of my friends was like, “Listen, the people who are on dating apps are not people that are listening to your podcast. You should go on there and start dating.” And so, I did.

And there are many funny, amusing stories that I have about being on the Bumble app. And I’m going to share a lot of those in Scholars, my experience with dating and meeting people and having this amazing experience that I had on the dating apps. And I never would have thought that would have been true, but it actually was.

And one of the things that came up for me as I was on these apps and as I was creating a dating profile for myself, one of the things that I knew was true for me is that I didn’t want to have casual relationships. I didn’t want to have any casual sex. I didn’t want to have any one-night hookups. That’s just not what I’m interested in. A lot of people had told me, you know, “When you’re single again, you should go out and have some fun.” I was not into that at all.

So, I had been sitting around with some of my friends and had been talking about it, and I had said, “I think what I want is a 90-day relationship. I don’t want anything serious. I don’t want anything long-term. But I also don’t want just some casual one-night stand.”

And so, I had this idea and I actually put it in a couple of the postings that I had done on some of the dating apps. And when I started talking to people and started talking to them about what I was interested in and what I was looking for in terms of dating, I offered up the idea of this 90-day relationship where I was interested in dating someone for 90 days in a committed relationship to see how deep and how far we could take it and how much fun we could have within the 90 days.

And surprisingly, so many men loved this idea and wanted to talk more about it and wanted to explore the idea of it. I went on a couple of dates with people and gave them the idea and we had decided that we weren’t a good fit. But they were still interested in doing the 90-day relationship, not with me but with someone else, and so they wanted more information about it and wanted to hear more about how they can implement it.

And so, of course, as a coach, my wheels got turning and I got excited about this. And I started thinking about this in terms of being something that many of my single friends could implement into their dating life if they wanted to.

About the same time, I met a man on Bumble who was very interested in doing this 90-day relationship. And I was very interested in doing it with him.

And one of the things that it did is it accelerated the relationship so fast because it took away two major problems. The first problem it took away was, typically when you’re starting in a relationship or you’re starting to date, you always have forever in the back of your mind. You’re always thinking, “Is this someone I could be with forever? Is this someone I could be with for a long-term relationship?”

And especially someone like me, I’m super-intense. I’m not really good at just having kind of casual relationships. I want to find out every single thing about you and I want to know all the details about what’s going on in your life and I want to understand you and I want to have really deep intimate conversations.

And by us signing up for this 90-day relationship, we were able to create this container of time where we could just dive in and explore with each other. And what happened next was extraordinary for me in my life, for him in his life, for our experience with each other, what I learned, what he learned, what we continue to learn together has just been unbelievable.

It’s been one of the most extraordinary experiences of my entire life. And as you know, I need to share extraordinary experiences with all of you. And we wanted to wait until the 90 days was up before we really started talking about it. And we decided that we definitely want to teach a class on it. we want to teach a class on how to create a container of the 90 days and how to set up a relationship just for 90 days that can completely change your life.

And we want to be able to do it for couples that are already in a relationship can start on a 90-day relationship, people that have just started dating, or single people who are looking to have a 90-day relationship with someone.

So, we are going to create this class. We see the benefit of it and we’ve had some friends do it that are also seeing the benefit of it. And so, we want to share that experience.

But before we do that, we want to have some conversations. We want to hear from you all. We want to share some of our ideas. We want to hear what you’re struggling with in your relationships, what’s working in your relationships. We want to get some of your ideas so when we put this class together, we’ve incorporated everyone’s experience.

I think that my experience is very unique, but the more people I talk to, the more people who are intrigued and excited about what can happen in the 90-day container relationship.

As I was preparing for this podcast, I stated thinking about the 90-day relationship in terms of the relationship with myself that I had. I had about a 90-day relationship just with myself when I was in Colorado. And I want to develop that as a course. And then I also thought it would be amazing to develop a 90-day relationship container for friendships, to deepen friendships and to take friendships to the next level too.

So, I just want to let you all know, this is coming attractions. It’s all in the works. I’m working with some of my friends on the friendship one. I’m working with myself on the personal one for yourself. And then I’m also working with my boyfriend on the 90-day relationship to share that as a romantic relationship with you.

And one of the main things that we’re going to be talking about in this first conversation setting, in Self-Coaching Scholars is romantic relationships. And as I was writing this down – it’s kind of fascinating – as I was writing this down, romantic relationships, I asked myself, what does it mean to have a romantic relationship?

Why do we use that terminology? Does it necessarily mean that we are romantic with each other? Does it mean just that we’re committed to each other? Many of us have marriages that we’re committed to, but there’s no romance in them that we wouldn’t characterize them as romantic.

And so, I looked it up on Google and I didn’t really find anything that satisfied me. So, the way that I’m approaching this in terms of a romantic relationship – and this is with men and women, women and women, men and men, this is any relationship where there is attraction, sex, meaning physical intimacy, and desire.

I think desire is a huge component of this type of relationship; a desire and attraction and physical intimacy with each other. That is the topic. Those are the types of relationships that we are going to be talking about as it applies to conversations about relationships in Scholars. And we’re going to be doing these conversations once a week.

My boyfriend and I are going to be on the calls, talking to you, getting your insight, coaching you, sharing our personal experiences and getting your ideas of what has worked for you and what isn’t working for you in your romantic relationships.

I ask myself the question, how is a friendship different than a romantic relationship? How is a marriage different than a romantic relationship? When you take out desire, physical intimacy, and attraction, what do you have left?

And the question then becomes, can you put the romance back in your relationship? Can you put the physical attraction, intimacy, the desire back into it? And do you want to? Or do you want to create a new relationship with the same person?

I love this idea. Esther Perel talks about this, where she’s been married multiple times to the same man and they keep reidentifying and recreating their relationship with each other based on some of these concepts, reigniting the desire and the physical intimacy and the attraction.

For me, reigniting all of that was with a different person. And for some of you who are single, that will be the case as well. And we want to talk about how can you manage that? How can you create that? What do you need to be looking out for?

And how can you create a container that allows you to fall in love with someone, allows you to go deep into desire in a safe way, in a way that’s mutually agreeable that can take you deeper, intenser, faster? Especially if you’re someone like me who is a little bit older who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time in casual dating mode. That’s not something that you’re interested in, how can you create these containers like I have and create intense, deep intimacy with someone that helps you grow?

And I have grown in ways that I didn’t even know were possible. I have fallen so deeply in love in ways that I didn’t even know were available to me. And I want to share all of those experiences with you.

I think that one of the things that I’ve noticed is that, in many of our relationships, especially in our marriages, we expect so much from that one person. And I did a podcast a while back called Want Match. And talking about circles of people that you have in your life you have different want matches with.

And so, many times, we expect all of our wants to be fulfilled by the one partner that we have in our life, which is, for me, a husband. For some of you it’s a wife. For some, you aren’t married but you’re living together, parenting children together, where you’re expecting this other person to be your financial partner, your friend, the person that is there for your convenience, for your companionship, for chores. Maybe you want them to be your therapist, you want them to be your helper, your coparent, or security. We’re expecting so much from this one person that a lot of times, we miss out on the desire, the physical intimacy, and the attraction.

Esther Perel was talking about this. I was listening to her talk about the difference between security and desire. They’re, like, in conflict with each other. So, how can we create relationships, romantic relationships, especially the ones where we’re partnering in terms of parenting children and living together and being roommates and being friends and keep that desire and that physical intimacy and that attraction going?

I want to offer that until I did this 90-day relationship, until I dove in and did this work, I didn’t realize how important it is to be in touch with my own desire, my own physical intimacy, and my own attraction. I learned it on a whole new level.

I definitely had it in my marriage, but I’ve taken it to a whole new level by using this infrastructure, by using this process and creating this way and new approach of going towards it. And I think this is something that nobody’s teaching right now that I had never learned before that is and has been incredibly important to my personal development in midlife. And I think it’s important to anyone who is wanting to have that experience.

There is something about the desire and the physical body and that connection that has made me come alive in a new way, at a new stage in my life, that has ignited brand new dreams, brand new desires, brand new ideas. And I want to make sure that no one else is missing out on this.

And this is whether you’re married, whether you’re single, or whether you’re already in a relationship, I feel like many of these ideas that I’ve discovered over these past several months are ideas that I want to continue to have conversations with you about and continue to get your ideas and share all of my personal private details.

But I actually don’t want to do that here on the podcast. I want to do that within Scholars. So, if you’re in Scholars, make sure that you sign up for those conversation classes or listen to the recordings. We’re going to pull you on live so we can have conversations about what’s going on in your personal intimate relationships and we can share stories and come up with amazing concepts and ideas together that we can share with the world.

I am so excited about what I’m experiencing right now, what I’m feeling right now. And one of the reasons why I’m so excited about sharing it with you is it isn’t even something I knew to dream for. It isn’t even something that I knew was a possibility for me in my life right now.

And some of you are in that same boat. You’re not recognizing that there is work that you can be doing within your own life, within your own sensuality, sexuality, and identity that can give you a brand-new energy that maybe you weren’t even aware that you had. And that is definitely something that I’m interested in sharing with each and every one of you who’ve been following me and seeing my growth.

Sometimes, I feel like I’ve done all the things that I wanted to do. I’ve accomplished so many of the goals. And so, to have this brand-new possibility, this brand-new energy, this brand-new goal to focus on and these containers in terms of relationships that I’m really diving into and exploring, I think, is so exciting and I can’t wait to share with each of you.

I want to just start the conversation. And those of you who are in Scholars can start thinking about this, so when we get on our first call, we can start talking about it. But the question that we’re going to talk about on the first call is why are you in a romantic relationship? Or why do you want to be in one in the first place? What is the point of it?

Why aren’t we just in platonic partnerships? Why aren’t we just in friendships? Why are we in romantic relationships? What is it about that relationship that is important to us and why? And the answer will be different for everyone.

And the reason why it’s important for each of us to know our answers is so we can separate out what we personally want and why and what the constructs of society are telling us. Because those are very conflicting, oftentimes.

So, ask yourself, why are you in a romantic relationship? What is the purpose for you personally? Please bring your answers to the call. If you’re not in Scholars, make sure you join now. Get the schedule so you can join us in that call. I’ll talk to y’all next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.