Luke Storey: [00:00:00] Here we are back again. Alyson Charles under such different circumstances. 

Alyson Charles: [00:00:12] Kind of couldn't be more different because I used to call you my dear brother. I found out a long time after that yeah, you never really liked that, but went from—what was that really funny book title. I said, my next book is going to be from brother to boyfriend, and it's the story of how we went from me calling you my brother to being my partner, but yeah, everything has changed.

Luke Storey: [00:00:36] Well, actually, to look at that more closely, when we were totally in the friend zone, the brother thing didn't bother me. It's only when I started getting my sights set on you that that started to rub me the wrong way.

Alyson Charles: [00:00:51] Okay.

Luke Storey: [00:00:52] Because, you know, when a woman is like, "Hey, you're my brother", then that's just so far into the friend zone, there's seemingly no way out of that.

Alyson Charles: [00:01:01] Right. But I also explained that as a spiritual path, walker and shaman, when I call a male like my brother or dear brother, it comes from that like sacred spiritual place. And I've always told you I loved you, too, the whole journey. We've known each other for about three years, and the whole time, it was just such a kindred soul connection with you that even when we were both celibate and in the friend zone, I would always express that I loved you.

Luke Storey: [00:01:32] Maybe that's why, as a former fearful, love-avoidant, unavailable male type that I wasn't really thrown off when you told me the time you really told me.

Alyson Charles: [00:01:42] Right.

Luke Storey: [00:01:45] I'll admit, under the circumstances, which I'm sure we'll go into, was a little like, oh, shit, we're there already. But then, every time we spoke, you would say that just perhaps without that much feeling. 

Alyson Charles: [00:01:58] That would be cracked.

Luke Storey: [00:01:59] Yeah. So, here we are. This is our first podcast together since Episode 111. And God, we've come such a long way. 

Alyson Charles: [00:02:10] Individually and collectively.

Luke Storey: [00:02:11] Yeah. And so, I think I'll just start by telling anyone that wants to know the full backstory, at least, that was like three years ago, we did 111. Very auspicious number, I came to learn later. But that's where we did like your whole backstory, your whole jam up until that point. So, people that want a lot of backstory, even though we're going to give a bit of it now just for context, I want to encourage them to go back and listen to that.

 Also, in episode 111 that we recorded those years ago in New York City, there was this key moment, and I've got the video from Facebook as I told you. I have it saved in Dropbox for posterity. At some point, it will, you know, be shown somewhere for some meaningful reason. There was this moment that we had and, you know, I was in professional mode, I wasn't dating, I was celibate, you were, too. I mean, I thought you were attractive and all of that, but I'm never going to give that kind of thing energy in the interest of professionalism and not to make things awkward and weird.

Alyson Charles: [00:03:13] And also, just where you were at with doing your inner development, where you had cut that, flirting was not allowed.

Luke Storey: [00:03:18] No.

Alyson Charles: [00:03:19] At that point. 

Luke Storey: [00:03:19] So, I was self-restricting all forms of intrigue and all that business. But there was a moment when we were recording and the people that go back and listen to 111 will know this from it, but I really—I think it was the first time I ever cried on my own podcast.

Alyson Charles: [00:03:34] That's what she said.

Luke Storey: [00:03:36] And I wasn't in the habit of being that intimate, you know, and vulnerable during those conversations, but I remember we got on the topic of relationships and I was explaining, I think, I have to go back and listen to it. We listened to it on the way to-

Alyson Charles: [00:03:53] We didn't get to that part yet though.

Luke Storey: [00:03:54] Yeah, we didn't get to the magical moment. But anyway, what happened was I was describing how, at that point in my life, I had made a couple attempts to have relationships that were of a deeper intimacy than I had formerly had and to be more vulnerable and more open-hearted. And the reason why I finally, as kind of a late bloomer, I think, as compared to most guys I know that, you know, go out and really open their hearts and become vulnerable and run the risk of being heartbroken, was that I had done so much inner work over the years, the kundalini yoga, all the practices, all the meditation that my heart had opened so much in this capacity to express love and to receive love had grown so big and so powerful that I literally couldn't hold it in anymore.

Alyson Charles: [00:04:46] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:04:46] And so, I made a couple attempts at relationships in which I really did open my heart or at least as capable as I was at that moment. And it was so terrifying. And the thing that I was always most afraid of did happen. It didn't work out and it was really painful and all of that. But when I shared that with you in our prior conversation.

Alyson Charles: [00:05:05] And it wasn't private, it was on the podcast, but-

Luke Storey: [00:05:08] Yeah, no prior conversation.

Alyson Charles: [00:05:10] Oh, prior, not that it's private.

Luke Storey: [00:05:10] Yeah. I remember that moment and I just looked at you, and it was just such a powerful moment because you just looked at me with such kindness, and there was this lack of judgment and this total complete acceptance that you had of me in that moment. And it was embarrassing. You know, like you're a pretty woman, I'm interviewing you, and all of a sudden, I start to tear up and I was just like, oh, my God, I'm mortified. How is this happening? And you didn't flinch. You just like leaned in and we're just there. And it was a really powerful moment for me on the podcast. And then, if I'm not mistaken, I think I remember texting you and being like, "Dude, I'm going to cut out that one part that was like whack. I have to be cooler than that."

Alyson Charles: [00:06:05] Yes, yes. 

Luke Storey: [00:06:05] My defenses came up and like that was way too authentic.

Alyson Charles: [00:06:09] Yeah, you wanted to edit it out, but I think the big gem in that part is the deeper part of you really didn't. Otherwise, you would not have texted, you would not have messaged me and said that because I think the deeper part of you knew I was going to be like what I said, I said, "No, vulnerability is the real juice of life, like that's what life is all about. You have to keep it in." And then, you were just like, "Are you sure? Okay, I will."

 But deep down inside, I think you knew it had a place, but I understand, you know, that it felt embarrassing. But for me, that's one of the things that I love about you so much. And in hindsight, and I think at some point we'll maybe get to reflecting more, but we look back to, of course, that time because that was the first official time we met, was when I was on your show, and then I was really calling in, you know, a sacred partner who had done years of work, who had really face themselves, who had gotten to a place of security and what I consider true strength within themselves, where they can express vulnerably and be honest and open their heart up and be emotionally vulnerable with me.

 So, in that moment, you know, I was really loving it and I was the furthest from being like, "Wow, I feel embarrassed for him." I was just like, "Oh, my God, yes, like this is what life is all about", you know. So, I loved it so much, seeing that side of you. And those moments are so powerful and of service for everyone else to just let layers go and let their hearts open up too. It's real medicine that transmits. And that was the moment—sorry. And then, I'll stop, but I will say that at that point three years ago, you know, I'd walk the path enough too that it really, truly was a place of non-judgment because I love—one of my favorite quotes is when you know yourself, you know the world.

 And after I had had my divine intervention, and my spiritual awakening, and saw the truth of me, and the veil lifted on earth and myself in my previous relationship, that was the instrument for that awakening. It's like once all of those veils lifted and I saw all those truths about myself, I really quickly realized I can never judge another again. You know what I'm saying? Because that's when I started to do shadow work and really face all aspects of myself. And so, I am really strong at holding space for anything that needs expressed, you know. 

Luke Storey: [00:08:40] It's interesting. In the age of social media and instantaneous sharing of ourselves, there's one side of it that's the polished face-tuned photos and the perfect lighting and the perfect filters and, you know, showing your perfect Rolex with your hand on the perfect BMW, whatever, you know, like the kind of vapid, superficial side of social media, and not that there's anything wrong with that because there's art in that also, right? 

Alyson Charles: [00:09:11] And it can be inspiring.

Luke Storey: [00:09:12] Yeah, there's the aspirational, inspirational part, but it's funny that there's this double-edged sword that's available to us that we can use this unedited, free-form, live, instantaneous sharing of media to share the innermost true, most authentic parts of ourselves. And it was in that moment with you that, you know—and thank you for your permission and your holding space for that and also your encouragement of me to like go in that direction because what happened was as a result of that moment, it was a newfound liberation within me to take the conversations that I have on the show to another level and to not really filter them in any way other than sometimes just things. I mean, you know me now quite intimately, there are many things I say in private that I would never say on this show or anything like that because people wouldn't understand the context of it.

Alyson Charles: [00:10:08] Right.

Luke Storey: [00:10:09] And I have a really F'ed up sense of humor, et cetera. But in terms of telling my backstory and revealing things about myself that I used to be kind of ashamed of and just having those moments of breaking down or heart opening or realization, the more I have dripped those out and also helped hold space and facilitate those experiences for the guests on the show, the more feedback I get all the time that kind of pushes the envelope of that because then, someone will message in and say, "Oh, my God, this was such a moving experience for me. I thought I was the only one that did that or felt this or had these experiences", et cetera. So, in the realm of, you know, the most intimate for many of us in the realm of relationships, and, you know, romantic intimacy, and past eating disorders, and addictions, and so many things that-

Alyson Charles: [00:10:56] All those shadowy stuffs that we used to hold shame around.

Luke Storey: [00:10:59] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [00:11:00] They need breath and expression.

Luke Storey: [00:11:01] And they're the things that people love hearing the most because I think in in the era of that shiny, fake social media and God knows the mainstream media in Hollywood and where everything's very polished and-

Alyson Charles: [00:11:14] Seemingly perfect.

Luke Storey: [00:11:16] ... synthetic in a way that people are hungry for the real shit.

Alyson Charles: [00:11:20] Well, right. And you're hitting on something that is so timely, of course, when we have these kinds of conversations, always like it's like a ping pong table, I love it, because right now, more than ever, it's about heart and tuning into our soul and our heart intelligence and being guided from the messages of our heart. And I even posted a long time ago on Instagram, you know, something like it's on a quote card I did like, the new paradigm will be led from the heart.

 I was picking up on this area in time in the planet in the life that we're now at quite some time ago, and I was just having this conversation a couple of days ago with a fellow dear shamanic sister, hey, Nicole, and we were talking about, you know, there tends to be these two different styles of leadership. And one style of leadership is when someone kind of, in some ways, almost like barks orders at you and tells you like I'm going to lead. 

 This is what's happening. This is what you need to do. This is what's going on. If you do this, you will feel this. And it's very like this kind of energy. It's very direct and strong and command-like. And then, there's this other avenue of leadership that's just way more raw, and to me, feels more genuine in a lot of respects. And it's more from the heart, and it's more vulnerable, and more honest, and more putting yourself out there as a leader saying, "Yeah, I might be a spiritual leader, but this is what I'm currently facing with my shadow work", or whatever is coming up for me in my personal life, and you're leading more from that avenue instead of acting like your life is perfect. 

 And because I have it all figured out, I'm going to teach you what to do. And so, I just think it's so beautiful that organically, this got brought up now because it is something I've been wanting to talk about a little bit more, just these two leadership styles. And to me, I think as a collective humanity, we do want more realness, rawness, and that comes from the heart. So, I look forward to hopefully seeing more heart-led, genuine, embodied heart medicine leadership coming out on the planet. Aho.

Luke Storey: [00:13:39] Aho. Yeah. I think the difference there is the new paradigm is that of modeling, where you're kind of modeling what the journey to awakening looks like, and not just modeling the point of arrival, but modeling the journey along the way. That's one of the reasons I always like to show my ass, figuratively speaking, although I think I probably have showed it on social media. 

Alyson Charles: [00:14:06] In a creek, in a hot spring somewhere.

Luke Storey: [00:14:09] Yeah, exactly. Cold-plunging somewhere in the woods. But one of the reasons I like livestreaming all the things, you know, like just now I did a story of like how shitty the other side of the studio looks right now, which is this tiny-ass room, my man cave office/Life Stylist podcast studio.

Alyson Charles: [00:14:24] It's actually a really beautiful room, but-. 

Luke Storey: [00:14:26] No, it is. But like, you know, with someone like me with an eye for detail, just the cables and the things out, and I'm just a bit, you know, OCD aesthetically. But when we started here, I'm having a total meltdown because the printer wouldn't print my notes for the episode. And so, I went to reset the printer and it went on like this R2-D2 possessed like Satan of a printer, and it wouldn't stop when I'm trying to record. And so, those are the kind of things you don't see in mainstream media, all of that's hidden away.

 And of course, I want the finished product of this episode to not show any of that, but it's fun to be able to use social media to show like that everyone's human and that there's real shit that happens. And that, I'm freaked out before every interview and a total basket case, and then the minute I hit that little red button down there, something happens and I just like zoom in to the person that I'm sitting with. And then, you know, that's the finished product, and that's where the real magic happens. But I think that, you know, those of us that have some eyes and ears on us to whatever degree we do, I don't think I'm Tony Robbins or something, but yeah, a few people follow the show, a few tens of thousands at this point. And-

Alyson Charles: [00:15:39] Oh, you have like four million downloads, but I appreciate your humility.

Luke Storey: [00:15:42] Well, you know, I never want to give the picture that I have it all figured out because that type of leader turns me off.

Alyson Charles: [00:15:48] Me, too. Me, too. 

Luke Storey: [00:15:50] I want to know that people are still neurotic sometimes, and that's what I loved about Ram Dass, you know, God rest his soul, is even at the end of his journey post-stroke, and all the things that he'd been through, and all the years of psychedelics, and, you know, hanging with his goober and all that, he would still admittedly be like, "Yeah, sometimes, I'm totally nuts. My humanity still shows up." And I think those of us that are on the path of enlightenment would be well-advised to understand that the arrival point is you leave your body, right?

Alyson Charles: [00:16:19] Correct. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:16:20] So, it's like, do you really want to get there that fast?

Alyson Charles: [00:16:23] Well, yeah. And in shamanism, at least from my perspective and the way that my shamanic medicine moves through me, is that it is the path of infinite evolution. And so, there is nothing that excites me more about my earth walk in general, the spiritual path in general, and specifically, the shamanic path in general than that aspect of it. It's the aspect that every single day, there are infinite places within myself, within my own being.

 And then, beyond that, there are infinite places in the unseen realms in which I can traverse to learn and be in wonderment and to experience miracles and to question and to explore. And so, I love how humbling this path is. The further I've gotten on it, the more humbled I've gotten. And I just love that dichotomy. And so, yeah, I like the real rawness of it, too, and the fact that we can always keep learning. So, I don't ever want to act like I have it all figured out.

 One of my favorite comments of all time, I think it was just yesterday, and I wish I could say it better because I just glanced through it, but she said, "I love that you, you know, don't seem like some untouchable celebrity, like you're so relatable and so accessible, and I know that you're no better than me." And to me, that was a testimony, like, oh, thank you for getting it, you know, because I want people to always feel in safe space with my work and when they go to my page, like I'm learning and growing every single day, and I am no better than anyone else. I might be a shaman and I'm a spiritual teacher, but I am no better than anyone.

Luke Storey: [00:18:12] Well, I would like to say that I think you have your shit very together. 

Alyson Charles: [00:18:17] Thank you.

Luke Storey: [00:18:18] And it's inspiring to me to see how level-headed you are.

Alyson Charles: [00:18:22] Thank you, honey.

Luke Storey: [00:18:23] Yes, wild. That's wild. More so than most people I know, male or female. Yeah, like sometimes, I'm expecting you to be like, I don't know, maybe it's just some of my own baggage, childhood stuff, whatever, where I feel like someone's going to be mad at me all the time because I behaved in ways that piss people off a lot. And I was around a lot of nutty people that had their own shit projected on me. 

 But I'm surprised at how even if like we ever do hit a rough spot or you get a little crunchy, as you say, around something, how quickly you're able to recover and get back to center, and how often I think there's something going on, and I check in with you, and you're like, "What? We're good. What are you talking about?" And it's like my own paranoia projecting that there's some kind of thing to talk about or some sort of problem. So, I want to acknowledge how far you've come.

Alyson Charles: [00:19:14] Thank you.

Luke Storey: [00:19:16] And also, the fact that I don't know where you came from exactly. So, I don't know, you know, I don't see the contrast there as I see within myself or other people that I've known for much longer than you.

Alyson Charles: [00:19:26] Yeah. I mean, I think in some ways, it is a vast departure to my pre-awakening life. Like pre-awakening, I was having a lot of anxiety attacks and panic disorder. And, you know, I still have rebel as one of my main archetypes, it's just now more healthily integrated. But the rebel in me growing up was expressing in a lot of unhealthy ways at many various times. And so, it's been really beautiful for me to witness my extreme evolution too. It's such a testament too when you become devoted to the path, when you really get committed to a spiritual lifestyle and spiritual practices. It really works, like it works miracles every single day. I mean, I'm a totally different person. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:20:12] Yeah, I can imagine. I wish sometimes that there was like footage of you being the old self just so I could—I just really can't, you having a panic attack, meltdown over some, you know, insignificant in hindsight event. Well, I don't really want to see it, but it would be interesting because I only know you as this really awake, bright, and shiny, happy, supportive, awesome person.

Alyson Charles: [00:20:33] I always had those aspects in me too, like I've always been silly and goofy and always had a bright aura and essence, but yeah, I was unhealed and there were a lot of traumas and wounds that had not even been glanced at that point. And for almost two decades, as you know, I was in a very co-dependent, very dysfunctional at times, very traumatizing relationship. And so, there was just a lot of pain body, a lot of shadow stuff that was not being healed and that stuff can get pretty dark and pretty painful.

Luke Storey: [00:21:07] As someone who is working on herself all the time, as am I, and that is committed to the path of evolution and growth, do you ever find yourself focusing too much on the things that you still need to work on? I find for me, sometimes, it's difficult for me because I'm always looking forward to what's next, so it's difficult for me to look back. Oh, my God. Twenty years ago, I was, you know, just completely neurotic and had all these drug problems and all of the things.

Alyson Charles: [00:21:38] Homeless.

Luke Storey: [00:21:39] Yeah, that was one period.

Alyson Charles: [00:21:42] I mean, I just love your story. It's so inspiring. And I know a lot of people maybe from my audience don't know it, so yeah. 

Luke Storey: [00:21:47] I mean, when I was homeless, let's be fair, I mean, I was not sleeping on the street, but I was sleeping in garages and things like that.

Alyson Charles: [00:21:55] My favorite part about that story though, and you know what I'm going to say, is the fact that even while you are homeless, you're still figuring out ways to like pay down your debt, and you're like still paying your bills and trying to be smart financially. For some reason, that point highly amuses me.

Luke Storey: [00:22:11] Well, when I became homeless, which really was more of a couch tour than like under-the-bridge homeless, you know, just to acknowledge the people that are truly, truly homeless, there were homes that let me in and I would house it for people and stuff like that, but I did have my own home. But one opportunity that I recognized at that time was, wow, you know, my rent was maybe a thousand dollars a month at that point, but I was like, oh, damn, if I was paying rent right now, I would be paying X amount of dollars. And so, I would just apply that to some credit card debt that I ran up when I got my first credit cards or whatever.

Alyson Charles: [00:22:45] But it's just such a testament to who you are that when you're in the throes of your drug addictions and like, yeah, sleeping and living in this garage, this other part of your intelligence was like, I'm going to figure out how to pay down my debt, you know.

Luke Storey: [00:22:58] Probably, you know, that comes from my dad. My dad's always been very fiscally responsible, very successful financially and not cheap, but wisely frugal, and just common sense. He's never been in debt, everything he's ever bought. He was in real estate. I think he financed one piece of land once and it drove him nuts that he owed the bank anything. That guy is just old school like Robert Kiyosaki? Rich Dad Poor Dad?

Alyson Charles: [00:23:25] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:23:26] Robert Kiyosaki I think his name is. That's his vibe. Passive income, you know, that stuff. Anyway, I digress, as someone who's come from a very rocky past and you know, if I look at where I was and where I am now, I'd be like, "Woohoo, I'm killing it." But because I'm always focused on improving and growing and evolving, I find that sometimes, I'm a little hard on myself and that I don't acknowledge my gains because I'm always looking at the next thing. I'm like zeroed in on that thing, even if it's a relatively small personal issue or character flaw or something that I'm trying to overcome.

Alyson Charles: [00:23:59] Okay.

Luke Storey: [00:24:00] Do you ever find that you're sort of trapped and like always looking at, "Oh, man, I still have to work on this and I still have to work on this and work on this." How do you keep it in perspective?

Alyson Charles: [00:24:11] It never feels like that, like that essence that came out, as you described it in that way, of that sigh, like that kind of growl of like, "Oh, now, I've got to work on this and work on this." I freaking love this earth life, and I love my calling in shamanism. And so, to me, I think it's perhaps due to my many lifetimes doing this work and a combination of other things, but the evolutionary aspect, like I said, it's my favorite.

 So, it never really feels like a chore. I will say the one area, though, that I have really grown in is I used to take the spiritual path a lot more seriously than I do now. And I think that was large in part because I was doing so much incessant shadow work at that time. And shadow work is not for the faint of heart. I mean, I had years of, you know, really facing my greatest fears and doing the deepest work of my life.

 And so, when you're traversing those waters and having those kinds of spiritual fires like raging and roaring through and you're in so many aspects of the old you that has to die off in order for you to be the phoenix rising and to be an embodiment in the way you need to be, to be of service the way you came here to be, and so on and so forth, like those kinds of passage ways on the spiritual path can feel extremely daunting. And so, during those times, it did feel a lot heavier and a lot more serious. But because I'm so consciously aware, I would catch that. And if there were days upon days on end where I was just like in the depths and in the throes and just like feeling a lot of pain, I would pull myself out.

 And then, I really made a strong pivot with that piece. Just since January, actually, my main go-to goddess is Goddess Isis from Egypt. And she's a ferocious, fierce-like, you know, queen of magic and the healing arts. But she will take you to the places that you need to acknowledge to transcend. And then, when January hit, there was a lot of huge, pivotal shifts in my life, and one of which is I, you know, vowed an honor to Goddess Isis, who will ever be my sister, and I've a lot of her soul particles in me, but I transition to working and calling in Goddess Aine, the Celtic goddess of lightheartedness and fertility and play and prosperity. 

 And so, when I called her forward to ask if she wanted to work with me and her permission to co-create with her, it was like a full on yes. And since I've invited her essence in to kind of teach and guide me and show me the way with this new way of living, it's been a lot of fun. I think before, I also used to fear that if I was too much of a playful shaman that people wouldn't understand the depth of sacredness to which I work from or they would assume-

 If I was, you know, a playful shaman, really lighthearted shaman, they would assume that I have not really been through enough shit or faced and done the really hard, scary, deep work, you know. So, I was creating those own false narratives in my mind, and I'm just continuously facing it all and giving myself permission to be who I feel called to be. And I feel called to be a lot more joyful and playful right now. And it feels good in my body and it feels good on me. So, I'm going to keep doing that.

Luke Storey: [00:27:52] It feels good to hang out with you.

Alyson Charles: [00:27:53] Yeah. You told me all the time. You're like, "You're just so fun."

Luke Storey: [00:27:57] I mean, for those listening, we have the best time.

Alyson Charles: [00:28:00] We really do.

Luke Storey: [00:28:01] Like it's ridiculous how-

Alyson Charles: [00:28:04] We laugh all the time.

Luke Storey: [00:28:06] It's ridiculous how silly we are. It's so fun too because I think where I was kind of going with that was sometimes, I forget to celebrate the wins and the gains, and to just acknowledge how much work has been done, and how much grace has been bestowed upon me, and how truly blessed I am to have not only survived the things that I've survived in life, but thrive through them. And that now is really on the eve of my 50th birthday this year is like time to celebrate for all the hard work that's been put in.

 And you really bring that into my life. And it's not even something I've had cognition around. It's just the air of playfulness that you bring into our home. And we just have the best time. And, you know, I think it goes back to what I was talking about earlier in our first meeting there when I had this moment of just, you know, cracking the armor of my heart open in front of you. And even though we didn't know one another, I still sensed, oh, my God, it's very safe with this person. I felt so safe and so held. 

 And in our current relationship, it's so much easier for me to stay in that celebratory place of freedom and playfulness and ease and can really be myself. And it reminds me of, you know, advice I've gotten from my dad over the years whose one of those that models the relationship for me. I mean, it took him a few tries, not with my mom or my brother's mom, but he's happily married for, I think, 20 years now. And as I've explained to you for maybe not on the show that I don't take advice from people that aren't doing what I want advice about, right?

Alyson Charles: [00:29:44] Correct. Right.

Luke Storey: [00:29:45] It means, I'm not going to take financial advice from someone who's broke, and I'm not going to take relationship advice from someone who's had a lot of failed relationships and can't figure that out. But one thing that he has always told me. And when I've called him, when I'm down and out and, you know, I've had the breakup or whatever, he's always said, "Luke, you know, you want a relationship that you're in not because it's exciting, but because it feels like home, because it's comfortable." 

 And I remember when I was some years younger, I thought, well, that sounds boring. Who wants that? It's got to be exciting, you know, or I forget the exact words, but that was the sentiment. I was recently speaking with someone and they said—I was asking them about their relationship, which is very healthy, and she said, God, I can't remember her name right at the moment, if you ever hear this, I'm so sorry. I'm having a brain fart, but it was at the Joe Dispenza thing and I was describing our relationship as it was budding. And she said, "Yeah, with us, you know, it just doesn't feel like a drug. It feels like-"

Alyson Charles: [00:30:45] Is it Christine? 

Luke Storey: [00:30:45] Yeah, Christine.

Alyson Charles: [00:30:46] Hey, Christine.

Luke Storey: [00:30:47] Yeah, that's right. Thank you. Thank you. And her husband, tell your name, goddammit. Anyway, need more Piracetam. She said it doesn't feel like a drug, it feels like home, you know. And it's the same thing my dad was getting out. When I watch he and his wife, May, they're just so relaxed. There's no like tension. No one's walking on egg shells. There's no hyper vigilance. Everyone just like has their guard down. They're just being themselves.

Alyson Charles: [00:31:13] Yeah. PTSD isn't circulating through the-

Luke Storey: [00:31:16] Totally. Totally, which I've experienced a lot.

Alyson Charles: [00:31:18] Me, too.

Luke Storey: [00:31:19] And, you know, so, it's just so nice to have that playful air that we have and just be fun. And I really don't think there's anything that I hold back from you. I mean, you see me at my absolute worst and most nutty, and you just keep coming back, you laugh at me. When I think you're going to be pissed at me about something, you're just laughing because I'm being so ridiculous, you know. And then, you know, I think maybe two days since we've been together, we're just like, heads up, I am psycho today, super irritable.

Alyson Charles: [00:31:49] Raging.

Luke Storey: [00:31:50] Yeah. Just I don't know what's going on. And then, it's wonderful to have that experience with you because I know it's not about me because you're able to communicate, hey, I'm having this experience over here, so heads up, like tread lightly. And I know that it's not about me, and you're telling me it's not about me. So, even if it does get a little bit sticky and we're not having one of those super fun free days, where we're just farting around the house and just being ridiculously silly that it's okay. It's like, cool. You're not always going to be up. No human being is ever going to be ecstatic all the time because we're still.

Alyson Charles: [00:32:22] Yeah. No, you don't want that. I mean, you want to be able to, yeah, experience the full range of human emotions. And once you go into both sides of that spectrum pretty deeply, then it's through those experiences that you learn to trust yourself. And that's how I keep my center. And I think that goes back to that level-headedness. It's like I know at this point, no matter what comes my way because of some of the deeply painful and traumatizing things I've been through, and I have been brought to my knees, and I have been in agonizing emotional pain, and all of that stuff.

 Because I've gone so far to the right on that end of the human emotion spectrum, it always pings you back the other way too. And I now trust myself. I know I can navigate any waters that come my way. One little bullet point that I say add in is I let myself feel all that needs to be felt. I do not bypass. And that's such a key to shamanism in the spiritual path in general, is that you always want to let yourself healthily experience and tap into whatever emotions are presenting. The key is just being consciously aware of them, and not getting attached to them, and not falling into victim mentality or whatever the thing is for too long. 

 But to not let a scary emotion enter in is what we call spiritual bypassing. And that's when it gets really dangerous. Especially when one is a spiritual leader or a teacher, you have to really watch out for people that have bypassed, who have not gone into the shadow work, and have not really done the deep dives within themselves, and done that lower chakra work, and they just kind of like cut off, and only ping up to the cosmos, and they might be a genius numerologist or whatever. But if they haven't done the deep, dark work, you got to really be careful about those leaders.

Luke Storey: [00:34:20] Yeah, I think that's a really important part of my personal practice is to not fight whatever happens to present itself.

Alyson Charles: [00:34:29] Yeah. 

Luke Storey: [00:34:30] There's a great-

Alyson Charles: [00:34:30] Non-resistance.

Luke Storey: [00:34:31] Yeah, there's a great book that I refer to a lot from, I always call him my favorite teacher, I don't know if I have a favorite teacher, but one that really took me through some challenging periods, and that's David R. Hawkins. We haven't talked about him a lot and I'm sure you're going to hear his audio books on long drives in the near future. But before he died, he wrote a book called—well, goddammit, what's it called? Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, something like that. Anyway, I've talked about a million times. I never remember the name, that's how I roll.

 But the whole book, which was his most simplistic writing, a lot of his other stuff was super deep, non-duality, like books you have to read 50 times to even like understand one paragraph. They're just like very dense and very high level, which is a great reading because you never master it, you know. But before he died, it was my sense that he wanted to leave something that was very tangible. And the whole book is about what you just described, like a detailed, you know, instruction on how to allow those emotions, whether it be like ecstasy or joy or at most, despair, shame, whatever it is, to allow them to fully manifest and not fight them, because then, they become suppressed or repressed and compartmentalized and compacted into your auric field essentially.

Alyson Charles: [00:35:55] Right. 

Luke Storey: [00:35:56] It's not the term he used, but that's how I would look at it or into the pain bodies you mentioned in the, you know, way Eckhart Tolle would perhaps put it. But that was huge for me because I think so much of my life was spent prior trying to avoid any feelings that were remotely uncomfortable. And in that, I was always trapped in them because I could never go through and pass through.

Alyson Charles: [00:36:21] Right. The only way out is through.

Luke Storey: [00:36:23] Yeah. And so, I think that that's really important. And, you know, I'm on the receiving end of you worked through a lot of the shadow stuff and faced it so that you can access that place where those don't exist or where you can. And I think I share this as well. I know that I do, actually, because I used to not be this way, where if you get triggered by something and there's an old wound that gets activated rather than shutting it down, denying it, there's an acknowledgement.

 And even sharing with your partner, hey, whoa, this trigger is hitting me right now, let's both observe this trigger, let's say it's about each other even, which is even more difficult, you know, because then, the vulnerability of your heart's in play, which is even more scary. But let's both zoom out from this and I'm going to share my experience with you, and then we're both going to hover above it from the observer-witness perspective and observe those feelings as something other than what we are and who we are rather than being like, I am angry, no, I'm experiencing something in my body that you could call anger, right?

Alyson Charles: [00:37:27] Right.

Luke Storey: [00:37:27] And then, we can both step outside and go, oh, wow, look at that anger over there.

Alyson Charles: [00:37:31] Yeah. 

Luke Storey: [00:37:31] Right? 

Alyson Charles: [00:37:32] And those are those exact moments where the biggest test is like, are you going to get defensive or not? You know what I mean? Because at that point, especially like you said, if it's a partnership, calling out trigger thing, like when you do this, it triggers me, and then you begin that exploration, right then is that precise moment where the other person, perhaps understandably so because we are human, can get really defensive because instantly, your ego feels under attack and you think that this is a thing that's specifically about you.

 But yeah, if you can just stay in that heightened conscious state and be the observer and open up and pan out into that bigger or of the to be investigated, that's when just, yes, so much energy and expansion opens up. It's really powerful. God, there are so many other things pinging in, but I do think it's interesting. Because there's so many pieces with this one piece. I have had a breakdown. I won't get into the story, but I've had a legit, massive breakdown when I was in my place in Brooklyn probably a couple of years ago, where I was like slobbering. You know, those kinds, where just slobbers coming out because you're just—or have you ever had that? 

Luke Storey: [00:38:44] No, I'm a man, dog. What? 

Alyson Charles: [00:38:45] You've never cried so hard and drool, just like-

Luke Storey: [00:38:50] Yeah, I have.

Alyson Charles: [00:38:50] So, it's one of those. I mean, I was like on the floor, but it was so wild because my higher self went up to the ceiling. So, I was in my body still to enough degree that I was having that human earthly experience and my higher self was floating and I was able to witness myself from the ceiling in that human state. And so, my higher self was able to watch that and see the beauty and the miracle in that. And see the evolutionary work taking place.

 So, even though I was in those throes and drool is just stringing down to the floor and I was like, you know, my higher self was like, God, this is so beautiful. Look at the beauty in this. And that's the place that you can get to when you let yourself traverse in all these ways. The other little quick nugget is back when you're saying that you used to push away the discomfort, I think it's really beautiful that even now in this present time, that's something you still watch about yourself, and that you're still really conscious of because you have openly brought that up to me, too. 

 Even in the moment where we became a couple, that piece was a bit at play in that moment too. So, I just don't know that pinged in to bring up and we can get into it as much as you want to or if we talk and we want to share about the story of the moment we became a couple and all of that, which I'm sure they will want to hear, but that piece, you still are watching. It's to a much lesser degree, but I think it's beautiful that you still keep an eye on those things.

Luke Storey: [00:40:18] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because I think I have such a high level of skill for avoiding discomfort. And as you know, I also have so many tools available in the spiritual and physical realm that can snap you out of that. And sometimes, those are needed, and sometimes, the real medicine is just sitting with it and acknowledging it. But I think in the context of relationship, what's been really fun with you is, and we haven't really had conflict and because we're human, I'm sure perhaps we will. 

 But there's been, you know, a few difficult conversations where one of us is not feeling great about something that involves the other person. I think the really important distinction in terms of communication and just working through things like that, and I noticed this early on about you when we would have to talk, you would never say, "You made me feel-", blank, you would say, |Hey, when this situation went down like it did, I experienced these feelings in myself", which is a huge distinction.

Alyson Charles: [00:41:26] I see.

Luke Storey: [00:41:26] And see, that's the key that allows two people, and this could be in any relationship, to then immediately be in that observer position where you're both witnessing a phenomenon that's not you. It's something that the one person is experiencing. And what a great way to work through shit, right? Because if you tell me, you know, "Hey, come here, can I talk to you for a sec? Yeah. You make me feel mad. You made me feel sad. You made me feel this."

Alyson Charles: [00:41:50] "When you did this."

Luke Storey: [00:41:51] Yeah. It's like, I can't make you feel any way. You can make yourself feel a way by believing whatever story you're telling yourself about what I did or about the situation that transpired. But just that one little shift of just, "Hey, I'm noticing when this kind of thing happens, I have this experience inside and I have these sensations and these thoughts and these feelings, let's take a look at that." 

Alyson Charles: [00:42:12] That's exactly how it goes.

Luke Storey: [00:42:14] I mean, that's so awesome to be able to relate in any relationship dynamic in that way. It's such a gift to be able to have that degree of self-honesty and awareness to know that my feelings aren't even my feelings, let alone are they being caused by someone else. Those feelings are just sensations that happen because there's subconscious traumas that are still lodged back in the brain and you have this amygdala that shoots you full of adrenaline and cortisol when something reminds you of that thing that happened in the past when in fact, it has no basis in reality.

Alyson Charles: [00:42:51] And that's where it gets so trippy. And I just want to thank you, honey, for acknowledging that about me. And I just want to thank you for the space that you hold. And when I have brought up different wounding moments and different triggering moments, and I say to you how you just explained, thankfully, you know, I'm aligning with you at this juncture in your path because you understand all those things you just said about how the brain works.

 And that's where it gets so trippy with triggering and wounding that hasn't fully been healed because there's so many layers to healing just one wound, is that when there's a wound that's opening, gaping enough, and when I peered into this particular wound that we've worked for me often on, you know, quite a bit since we've got together, when I was working with God on it, the vision of this wound was still really open and gaping, and on the outside, it would have infection around it.

 So, I knew there's still a lot of work to be done. But when I say that I'm really triggered, you soulfully understand then what's happening in my brain. And I am sharing all this too for everyone listening that it can get really trippy and tricky in your own head because those pathways—depending upon how many times you were traumatized in that particular wound, those pathways can really get carved in your brain. So, when that wound gets pressed on or stabbed or feels like a sword going through it, your brain kicks into that state and it really does feel real. 

 And these are those really, really pivotal moments where it takes two highly, highly conscious and awake and spiritual people, I think, to navigate these waters in a very healthy, divine way because though triggers can be so painful and so all encompassing, and they can swirl you up and sweep you up, and your brain will tell you this is unsafe, this is what's happening, but then, to have someone like you on the other side being like, "Okay, sweetie, so what's happening right now is your amygdala is freaking the fuck out", or whatever you say to me, you know, then. 

Luke Storey: [00:45:04] That's what it is.

Alyson Charles: [00:45:05] And then, I'm like-

Luke Storey: [00:45:06] I've interviewed enough neuroscientists because I'm so curious about like what happens when you get triggered, what is going on, why is it so painful, and why can't you get out of it?

Alyson Charles: [00:45:14] Right. Yeah, it's sucks you in like a black hole.

Luke Storey: [00:45:18] Yeah. 

Alyson Charles: [00:45:18] But yeah, you're able to speak to me in a way, and I trust you enough. That's another key piece to our relationship, is somehow innately or our past lives or whatever this alchemy is, that is you and I in this partnership, is that you have been able to trust me along the way when I am seeing things, and aware, and sensing things that you're not, and vice versa. So, when I'm in that triggered state, I'm able to trust you that this isn't really the real thing that's happening.

 And then, I may be able to have a different dialogue and I'm like, "Okay. So, help me. Like what can I do right now? Because this trigger is full on, what can I do right now to calm it a little bit?" And then, it gets really funny because when the trigger keeps going, I'm just like, "Oh, my God, I'm still really triggered." But then, it's almost like I'm still in the triggered pain, but I'm laughing with it at the same time because I am starting to then see the absurdity and see that it's just the wound talking or the pain body that's activated. And anyways, I just think it's important to touch on because everyone encounters this.

Luke Storey: [00:46:25] Yeah, it's the way we're wired because that limbic system in the brain is the center that protects us from danger.

Alyson Charles: [00:46:33] Right.

Luke Storey: [00:46:34] And so, that example I like to give, you know, is I have Cookie, my sweet little pup, well, actually, our sweet little pup, like it or not now. 

Alyson Charles: [00:46:42] I love Cookie.

Luke Storey: [00:46:43] No, I know you do. I know you do. And she loves you. But anyone that knows me from years ago, I used to literally say all the time, I hate dogs. I would usually throw in the F word like F'ing hate dogs. 

Alyson Charles: [00:46:53] Wow. I didn't know that.

Luke Storey: [00:46:54] Yeah, because when I was a kid, I was just terrorized by dogs on numerous occasions. I got bit on the leg by a German shepherd once. I still have a big hole in my thigh, I show it to you sometimes. And then, I got beat on the face by a Rottweiler.

Alyson Charles: [00:47:06] Is that that scar?

Luke Storey: [00:47:07] Uh-huh.

Alyson Charles: [00:47:07] I've always wondered what that scar is.

Luke Storey: [00:47:09] Yeah, Rottweiler.

Alyson Charles: [00:47:10] Wow. To have a Rottweiler come at your face, that is very traumatizing.

Luke Storey: [00:47:13] Yeah, you think? So, I was like, I hate dogs for the longest time. And so, what would happen was anytime I would hear a dog growl, a dog bark, walk by a dog, even though consciously, I would know that the dog wasn't going to hurt me, that limbic system would fire because those memories from the past are logged in my—I think it's your hippocampus. Neuroscientists, let me know if I got this wrong. But I think is your hippocampus, where those memories are stored, then the amygdala goes to there. Is there anything like this in our past that's similar? Yes. Ding, ding, ding. 

Alyson Charles: [00:47:49] No. That's when the emoji. That red siren emoji goes off.

Luke Storey: [00:47:53] Yeah, the siren emoji. And so, even though your logical brain is going, we're safe, that's a freaking, you know, like a Pomeranian, it's not going to hurt. Like I could punch it across the street right now.

Alyson Charles: [00:48:05] That's a teacup Pomeranian.

Luke Storey: [00:48:06] Yeah. There's no way or, you know, in this situation we're describing where you're triggered about something and I'm going, "Honey, everything's fine. Like I'm safe, I'm here for you." And you're like, "Yeah, but, but, but". It doesn't matter what the reality is presenting, it's, we don't have control at least until we learn how to control it and heal those parts of our physical brain and psychic sort of body as well, it's that we don't have control over that, except that we can start to understand how it works. 

 And that, for me, is so powerful. So then, you know, now, if the dog barks or I walk by a big scary dog, I mean, there's actually an appropriate response. So, the limbic system still goes, look out, don't go too close, but I know my heart doesn't start beating and I don't get that full download of stress chemicals that get me in fight or flight to the point where I can't get out. It's like when you watch an animal in nature, if you're out in the woods and you startle a deer, you know, they get fight or flight, they flight, they get the hell out of there. 

 And then, you watch them, ten seconds later, they're just eating grass like nothing ever happened, like that's the normal animal response for an animal that's not been emotionally harmed and damaged to the point that they have to now go undo it, you know. So, we have that capacity to get back to wholeness, but we have to build to work with one another as humans and communicate the experiences we're having from outside of that experience.

Alyson Charles: [00:49:30] But that's when that deep trust comes in.

Luke Storey: [00:49:33] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [00:49:33] Because you have to trust someone else that what they're observing-

Luke Storey: [00:49:37] That they're not manipulating you?

Alyson Charles: [00:49:38] Right, or any myriad of things.

Luke Storey: [00:49:41] Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of trust that comes in play, and that's also where shamanism and various spiritual practices really are key to transcending these pieces, to know for real. Why are you laughing?

 No, I'm laughing because I remember the one time when you were I think your most triggered moment, which was just kind of you could just generalize and say it was around trust, you know, in your most triggered moment. And I was going, "Honey, no, all that's happening is your amygdala is firing and it's filling your body and brain full of stress chemicals, cortisol and adrenaline. And you're just caught in a limbic system loop."

Alyson Charles: [00:50:18] Right.

Luke Storey: [00:50:19] And you're going, uh-huh, uh-huh, looking at me sort of suspiciously and you're going, "But how do I know you're not manipulating me right now?", you know.

Alyson Charles: [00:50:26] Did I say that? 

Luke Storey: [00:50:27] Something to that effect, you know.

Alyson Charles: [00:50:28] I don't remember saying that. 

Luke Storey: [00:50:29] Or, saying, you know, like in this situation in the past, someone might have been just, "Oh, no, honey, you're imagining all of this."

Alyson Charles: [00:50:38] Well, the old paradigm situation for me was being made that I'm crazy, that I'm the crazy one that's imagining all this stuff that I never, FYI, I was never imagining it, I was actually correct.

Luke Storey: [00:50:49] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [00:50:49] But yeah. So then, it flashes you back, but then, I had to trust myself, and we talked about this too, at the end of the day, it's really about just trusting me and trusting myself, trusting that I have walked this path and done this work for enough years that I have risen to a plane of existence that the partner that I have called in and that I am now experiencing would be someone that does not operate in that old paradigm way that I used to suffer in. 

 And that's one of the things we love so much about our union. The look on your face is really funny right now. I don't know why. But one of the things we love so much about our union is that we came together from a healed whole place. And again, we're not saying we still don't have work to do and things to explore, but where we're at in climbing the mountain top of ascension and evolution, we got to a kind of place that we came together from being healed from wholeness, from sovereignty.

 And because we united from that place and we did not unite in the wound, which we both have lots of experience in, in the past, that's one of the reasons why we're able to experience so much joy, and laughter, and play, and silliness, and sacredness, and all these things because we're not connecting from the pain body place, we're not connecting and uniting from the wound. We came together from wholeness, from sovereignty, individual sovereignty. We both clicked and landed into that. And then, from that place, God, universe, our souls, peyote, all these things were then saying like ding, ding, ding, now, it's time. Now, they've ascended to this place. Sovereignty, sovereignty together now, right?

Luke Storey: [00:52:35] Mic drop, yeah. Yeah, I think that's something that's really been interesting to experience, is that, though, you know, when you talk about these things, you know, I never want to refer to past relationships specifically. I mean, I'm so grateful to anyone. Just on record, anyone I've ever dated in any way in my entire life, God bless you, I love you so much.

Alyson Charles: [00:52:58] All teachers.

Luke Storey: [00:52:59] Yeah, because it's gotten me to where I am and I'm grateful for every experience I've ever had, even the ones that were painful. 

Alyson Charles: [00:53:05] For sure.

Luke Storey: [00:53:06] Yeah. I mean, it's just because it wouldn't be possible to be where I am now as an individual or have the capacity for relating that I have now had I not been through so many different experiences.

Alyson Charles: [00:53:17] Correct.

Luke Storey: [00:53:17] And so, like all challenges in my life, I'm so grateful for them even though they were, at times, difficult. But it's, you know, this tendency that we humans have to feel a pole or an attraction to a dynamic that's unhealthy because it's familiar.

Alyson Charles: [00:53:38] Correct.

Luke Storey: [00:53:39] My friend, Neil Strauss, he calls this trauma bonding, you know, where you both, you have the same wounds in your past, and they become like a key in a lock, and they just fit perfectly together, and you meet someone and you have these fireworks. And I think that's that kind of like addictive excitement where you're just like, "Oh, my God, you think, did they text me back yet? It's only been 30 seconds. What's going on?" You know, like that craziness that I've experienced so many times in relationships. 

 And, you know, this is after studying really, at depth, love addiction and codependency and all of these things that are a result of childhood trauma and us having broken bonds with our caregivers, and things like that, and our caregivers having broken bonds with one another, and, you know, betrayals, and abandonment, and abuse, and all of the things so many humans have a tendency to experience that we meet someone, and that familiarity is so intoxicating even though our logical mind might say, like, don't do it, don't do it, bad idea, bad idea.

 I'm speaking from my own experience, and I've observed in others, I think, compelled to move forward with it even though it's the broken parts of you that are fitting together like puzzle pieces, and you haven't become in love with yourself in the most positive, humble sense. And I think before we met, I had had experiences in Costa Rica and in ceremonies that really connected me to my own heart. 

 And just I found my center and my home within myself, and that self-love, and that deep self-acceptance to where even though I had the desire to be in a relationship, and I want to have that union, and that intimacy, and, you know, the sharing of love, and all the things that a great, healthy relationship has, I think I really did had to get to a point where I was totally capable of giving that to myself.

Alyson Charles: [00:55:35] Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:55:36] And I couldn't let another truly in the depths of my heart until I let myself in my heart.

Alyson Charles: [00:55:41] Another mic drop.

Luke Storey: [00:55:42] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [00:55:43] And that's the place that I was getting to in my own self too, and one of the questions that I wrote down because I was your makeshift printer for the questions today, I saw one of the questions-

Luke Storey: [00:55:53] Which I've totally ignored because-

Alyson Charles: [00:55:55] Yeah, I know. We're going off the rails here. But one of the questions in there was how did I learn how to be in a healthy relationship when all those years I was just on my own, right? Because for those who don't know, you know, my backstory, go to episode 111, I think I shared some of this there, but my divine intervention, spiritual awakening came from a very trying past relationship. That was the instrument that catalyzed that moment for me where my entire life changed. And from that point, I was really, for many, many years, consciously single and for many years, celibate. 

 And so, yeah, I just thought it was curious that you pose that, you know, by yourself, how did you learn to land to a place and a healthy relationship now, when I was navigating those waters after my awakening day just on my own? And it's really what you just said. It was me just growing every day and my ability to so fully and truly have self-love, self-respect, self-honor, self-sacredness, all of those pieces that I got to a place. Now, this is after basically for five whole years being completely celibate at this point.

Luke Storey: [00:57:25] That's a crime against humanity.

Alyson Charles: [00:57:29] I don't disagree. But I will say that somehow, I think I got gridded with spiritual microchips that just knew it was going to be a part of my path that I somehow was able to do it. And it wasn't somehow that crazily agonizing. But I mean, at times, it was, but not overall. So, it was me just learning to love myself so deeply that I actually got to a place. Now, I really wanted my king and I really wanted this sacred partnership, and there's still a part of me that thinks if it's in the cards and meant to be, I want to also experience being a mother, and all of those things.

 So, it's like I wanted to call in my sacred partnership. And I believed it was true because I'm so devoted to this path, it's like I'm going to have to meet someone who's on my consciousness level. And I go all the way in deep and hard like everyday with this. So, it's got to be someone who also devotes their life to this. While I believed it was possible and that there was a man out there that could hold a proper space for me that I wanted, I also just got to a place where I had another surrender moment specifically around this piece.

 And I just thought, you know what, I'm so at home within my own body, I'm so at home within my own being, and I truly unconditionally loved myself so much, if it's my path that it's just meant to be that I'm just riding solo for the rest of my life, and if I'm supposed to be celibate, like, wow, I wouldn't have guessed this for myself, but okay, you know, and the irony is that so many times, when we have these surrender moments, it's like we try to manifest and call these things in and manifest and call these things in and do all of this like, you know, magnetizing and all of these things, and then it's like you surrender, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's there, you know. 

 And that's happened time and time and time again for me. And that's what happened in this situation. The last little nugget, I will say, is just because I was celibate and really wasn't dating, don't think that I wasn't tested or challenged because when I made the decision that I wanted to be in partnership again, I felt like I was ready to call in the one, the final relationship for me this lifetime, I was like, okay, I've got to do something different. I don't leave my house much, so I need to get on these dating apps.

 So, I did do a healing session around dating apps because when I was a TV host, I was the one who would go on the dating app segments, and I was the host that would say, you know, it's just online shopping for humans, and I was very against it. So, I did a healing session to transcend that belief. And only after that then I uploaded a couple of apps. And in the couple of dating experiences I had, I got presented right away with tests and challenges of that thing you just described of the meeting when the wounds-

Luke Storey: [01:00:25] Trauma bonding.

Alyson Charles: [01:00:26] Trauma bonding. And there was one in particular that like, oh, my God, it was so clear what was going on, but it was painted in such a glorious picture. I mean, pet houses were involved and just, you know, like these external things that were very, very enticing and very sparkling. But the deeper part of my soul knew, I was like this is that thing again, Alyson, you have to hold the line. And I got taken into a weekend of really deep work.

 I had to phone a friend on this. I had to phone my oldest, best friend, Nikki, from back in Indiana because she knows the whole journey for me. And I was like, this is what I'm experiencing. And she was just like, Alyson, this is the addiction piece. That's who this is. This is that representation for you. You have to keep holding the line and walking through the portal. And by me staying strong and fighting that addiction urge and that trauma bonding urge and holding the line, literally, I was watching myself that weekend walking through an energetic portal. 

 And by me staying strong and staying so heightened, consciously aware, and not texting back, and not engaging, and not reverting back into that old portal, I popped out into a new one and it was not long after that you and I all of a sudden started to have these different conversations, which I feel like we should really talk about. Let's go talking about ourselves and let's talk about how we got together as a couple. That's what they're really here for anyways. They just want to know, well, how did we fall in love? When did this happen?

Luke Storey: [01:02:01] Well, you know, as funny as we're sitting here talking, it's like it reeks of like a honeymoon phase, you know, because it's sort of like, oh, we have this all figured out, we're good. And I just want to say like we're not, you know, like there's always going to be a certain type of effort or work in a relationship. And I think that where I was misguided often when you hear people say, which they say, "Oh, relationships are work, man, you got to work on it." I thought that you just always are going to have conflict. You always end up in therapy, you always have drama, you're always going to be fighting. And then-

Alyson Charles: [01:02:45] That kind of work.

Luke Storey: [01:02:46] Yeah. You're with a person to like bring out the worst parts of yourself, bring them to the surface, so then, you can work on them. And I've experienced that. And I think I am just celebrating that our work is more in how can we make our relationship a meditation, you know. It's like, can the work be how unconditionally can we love? Can the work be how much personal responsibility can we take for our own shit, our own feelings, the way that our mind is perceiving a situation?

Alyson Charles: [01:03:19] Yes.

Luke Storey: [01:03:19] Can we ask ourselves is what I'm experiencing and projecting on this person true or not and be brutally honest with ourselves as to what the answer to that question is? 

Alyson Charles: [01:03:28] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:03:29] So, I acknowledge that it's a work, but it's a different type of work, and it's a work that I haven't done before. It's work of, you know, can I stay off my phone, and just look you in the eyes, and be willing to just sit there with you? You know what I mean?

Alyson Charles: [01:03:44] Or to me, it's the work where I get really funny and like, you know, I like to get, you know, sometimes like a little pouty and I'm like, "No, but, you know, I don't want to do this", or whatever. And then, I love when you remind me, you say that thing of, it's about how quick can we get back to love. And sometimes, I just like to be in that other little pod, where I'm like, "No, you know, pet me and coddle me.

 I'm over here sulking." But you don't let me stay in that really kind of pointless or very long, and I love that because it is true. You know, I just don't want to wallow in that other space when I'm with you. You're just like, no, like it's time to get back to right here, right back to love. You don't ever let me go over there and stay over there very long. You let me just do whatever for a little bit and you're like, all right, enough, get over here. It's so funny.

Luke Storey: [01:04:37] I've learned so much doing this podcast and having conversations with people. And I've interviewed a couple of couples, one of them, Aubrey Marcus and and his former partner, Whitney, and they ended up breaking up. But that interview was about like their open relationship and their very non-traditional way of relating. And that wasn't a model that I was interested in pursuing at that point.

Alyson Charles: [01:05:01] Yeah, that one just gave me full-body like no, thank you.

Luke Storey: [01:05:03] It wasn't a model I was interested in pursuing personally, but it was an interesting conversation. But I did admire their willingness and ability to really walk through some super painful stuff together around that, what that brought up. I was like, good for you, that ain't my path, like I don't want to suffer that much. But I interviewed another couple. Nick Broadhurst and Melissa Ambrosini, and the conversation was around their relationship. 

 And they were talking about conflict resolution, and they said that they had a kind of a motto in their relationship that something like this, it was, no good ever comes from closing your heart or even just closing. No good ever comes from closing. And all of us have that protective mechanism of like threatened, hurt, pissed. I'm going to shut down, punish you, just stay in my own shit and sulk.

Alyson Charles: [01:05:55] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:05:55] It's like literally, nothing good ever comes from closing. It's so true and it's so simple. So, my personal practice and what you're describing is even if I think, "Oh, my God, she is being so ridiculous right now, what a bitch, like are you serious? Like you're blaming me for this?", All the thoughts that go in my head or yesterday, when you were having that, it was like none of your business, this is my shit. Stay out of my-

Alyson Charles: [01:06:20] What are you talking about with yesterday? 

Luke Storey: [01:06:21] You were give me unsolicited career advice because you were triggered by the way I was handling the situation around an email.

Alyson Charles: [01:06:27] What was it?

Luke Storey: [01:06:28] See, it was so insignificant, it went away.

Alyson Charles: [01:06:29] An email.

Luke Storey: [01:06:30] Doesn't matter.

Alyson Charles: [01:06:31] Oh, that. Oh, I remember that, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Luke Storey: [01:06:35] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [01:06:35] Oh, good, that was funny, "I'm trying to change the world here." That was what was coming up, was like, you can't play a role in this, you've got to change the world with me. Okay. Got it.

Luke Storey: [01:06:42] It was around people in our industry being fairly compensated and the type of deals that we engage in and the global effect on them when we sell ourselves short. 

Alyson Charles: [01:06:53] I was like, don't perpetuate the old cycle, you've got to say no, you've got to stand up, and you've got to go the new way with me, right? Yeah. I was very strong in that.

Luke Storey: [01:07:01] So, I had thoughts arise that were like, "Bitch, this is none of your business. I didn't ask your opinion." And like that could have turned into a fight, but I have that mantra, no good ever come—which would be closing my heart, which would be not allowing you to have your experience and acknowledging that there are something in there that you found a trigger in that was worth exploring or just holding space and just being compassionate for you having that experience and opening my mind to the fact, which is the idea, maybe she's right, maybe there's something here for me to see that I'm not seeing rather than being defensive.

Alyson Charles: [01:07:35] Right.

Luke Storey: [01:07:36] But whatever was going on, closing and meeting that with resistance and not holding space for that would be so dumb and unproductive. So, you know, what a great and simple lesson that is, is to just remain open-hearted. And even if you don't agree, there's always a way to work it out without closing. In other words, you can still express the negative emotion, you could still disagree, but you can do so without closing your heart. You can practice unconditional love, which means like I love you, even if I think you're being completely out of line and ridiculous. I love you more now than ever in your ridiculousness, you know.

Alyson Charles: [01:08:14] I had some really good points though, so let's not play like I was-

Luke Storey: [01:08:19] Well, that's where the open-minded consideration of okay, she's coming to the table with this idea and this response from an emotional-triggered point of view, but let's not let that discount the truth that might be behind it. And I think there was a lot of validity to what you were bringing up, regardless of whether or not I asked you for your opinion or, you know, whether or not you're overreacting or wouldn't let the damn thing go when I already said, "Okay, I get it, you know. I'll look at it", or, you know, trying to make you see my side and you didn't understand and all this shit, you know.

Alyson Charles: [01:08:54] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:08:54] So, it's in that just to say that it's so fun to really work with you on the things that come up in that relationship, and that the work, it's a great kind of work because it allows me to expand more into love and into truth and to get through the falsehoods much more quickly because we're both willing to do that.

Alyson Charles: [01:09:16] Correct.

Luke Storey: [01:09:17] So, back to your point of our somewhat strange and unconventional journey to becoming a couple.

Alyson Charles: [01:09:29] From brother to boyfriend.

Luke Storey: [01:09:30] Yeah, from brother to boyfriend. Your next book and we're going to talk about your book project and other things, too because I talk about those things to all my guests. But I remember, as I said, when I met you, I mean, you're a gorgeous woman. Obviously, I acknowledge that. Wow. That's a really pretty woman to have on the podcast. There is all that. But professionalism, where I was in life, you lived in New York, all that.

 And so, we had a great time during that conversation and remained friends and would run into each other at events. And even, I think, text here and there every once in a while, and things like that. And, you know, still keeping everything on the up and up. And for me, I didn't like the idea of dating someone that lived in New York City when I lived in LA. I've tried that and I found it to be really challenging, you know, just proximity. It's difficult.

 So, even at points in which I was single and saw you as a possible viable date or potential partner, et cetera, there was no point in engaging with you on that level because like why, it's not going to go anywhere. She lives in New York, so like why even entertain that, and perhaps ruin a friendship, and just like date when she comes out here, it was just dumb? But there was one point at which I was single, and I don't know that I was that ready to start dating again, but you were here and the opportunity arose. So, we went to coffee. You know, I'm sitting across from you.

Alyson Charles: [01:10:54] Well, now, let's be clear. I don't drink coffee, I was having tea. I've been off coffee for about four years. But anyways, go ahead.

Luke Storey: [01:10:59] Unfortunately, yes. That's one thing we can't share our love of. You have your matcha here, you-

Alyson Charles: [01:11:04] That is correct.

Luke Storey: [01:11:05] Your little dirty matcha cups everywhere. That matcha cups-

Alyson Charles: [01:11:09] Looks like swamp water in here.

Luke Storey: [01:11:09] It does. Swamp water with lipstick all over it.

Alyson Charles: [01:11:13] Yeah, that's my style.

Luke Storey: [01:11:15] But, you know, in the interest of being honest and transparent, which is just a growth practice for me, it's just something I like to be more honest and forthright, without any agenda whatsoever, we were sitting there, and I just thought, I'm getting more information here that's indicating to me that there might be the possibility of dating this woman because you had said to me in the course of that conversation or in texting or whenever it was, I'm sure you remember the details better than I do.

Alyson Charles: [01:11:42] I do.

Luke Storey: [01:11:42] But it was communicated to me that you were in the process of moving to LA.

Alyson Charles: [01:11:46] Correct.

Luke Storey: [01:11:46] I was like, oh, whoa, that changes everything because that was kind of a non-negotiable for me. And so, when we were at tea/coffee, what did I say to you? Because you'll remember, and I won't. I'll remember the sentiment that was like, hey, I'm asking me straight up, this is what's on my mind, and I expressed what was on my mind.

Alyson Charles: [01:12:04] Well, yeah. I had texted you to let you know I was going to be—because I've been by closer for a while and I would usually give you a heads up just to say hi or whatever. And so, I said, yeah, I was coming into town. And you asked me in that text, you said, "What are you coming into town for?" And I said, "Actually, just life. I'm officially moving to LA. I made that clear decision. And so, this is the first trip ever where I'm not filming my show, I'm not taking any work meetings, none of that is happening. I'm just coming there to activate my life."

 And so, I think that was probably maybe unconsciously or consciously when some layer started to open up. And then, yeah. And this conversation at this hotel where I was just working from one day when you came to meet me for this tea/coffee, after the first portion of the conversation, which was a totally different tone and subject matter, you then went from sitting next to me on the booth side to pivoting to the other side of the table into a standalone chair, and I'm holding Cookie on her leash, your dog, and I remember thinking like, what's happening right now? Why is he getting up and moving to the other side of the table? Why are we re-positioning here? What's occurring?

 I remember being very conscious of this movement. And you really like, you know, took a second to kind of get yourself set again and, you know, just yeah, get reset within your being, and I could feel and see different vulnerability energy starting to open up from behind your eyes, and different emotions starting to get evoked. And then, that's when you said something to me to the effect of, "Well, you know, I've always been interested in you", right? You said something like that.

 And then, I, at this point, was totally shocked and was silent. And then, I can kind of see your face, you turned your head to the side a little bit and you were like, did you know that? And then, that's when I said to you, "No, I had no idea." And I was feeling so many things at this point because I'm looking at you and you're just such a beautiful human and such a beautiful man. And you had such honesty glistening in your eyes. And your soul is really exuding through, so I'm really seeing this like vulnerability. 

 And I'm really in tune with that and wanting to honor that, yet at the same time, in my being, I'm just like, "What the fuck is going on right now? Did he just say what I think he said?" And so, like I'm experiencing all these different energetics and emotions simultaneously. And yeah, I don't even remember now. This is where I completely blank. I don't remember what happened after that. I know that we talked for a little bit more before you needed to go, and I walked you outside for you to get your car.

 But I don't remember how we wrapped the conversation. I think we just kind of left it at like—because I didn't say back to you, "Oh, I've always been interested", I did not say anything back like that. I do recall that. I think I was more just shell-shocked and trying to process. So, I didn't really give you anything to work with. I didn't say back like, "Oh, I've been feeling the same way or anything." Yeah, I was still processing. Do you recall anything else that was said?

Luke Storey: [01:15:43] Well, I know that my intention was just to express my truth. And I didn't want to be inauthentic and I just want to let it known. In other words, like I wasn't attached to the outcome of it. It was just something, a performance that I had to give in order to feel free of that. And even if you had been like, I'm dating someone now or like I just want to be friends, it wasn't even about that. It was about the result. It was just about like, hey, I just want this to be known. I'm like, okay, now, she knows I'm kind of crushing on her and we can move on with life and not be awkward. But I think that it was kind of like, well, let's, you know, go grab a bite sometime or something. I think there was like, well, let's do something at some point.

Alyson Charles: [01:16:22] Okay.

Luke Storey: [01:16:23] Date-ish, I think.

Alyson Charles: [01:16:25] I have no idea.

Luke Storey: [01:16:26] And then, I mean, the funny thing about this, I think, and, you know, we could probably tell it in a shorter version, leaving out some of the minutia, but I think what's really interesting about it is from that moment, things just started to move on their own. And I had this framework or structure of how I think this is supposed to go when you want to enter into a successful, healthy, long-term relationship, which is really taking your time to get to know someone, which is something that I didn't do in my younger years and often ended up in relationships that were misaligned because they weren't very well-thought out and weren't entered into with much consciousness or awareness.

 No plan, just like feels good, run, you know, zero to 100 kind of thing. And so, having had some of those experiences and seeing that pattern doesn't really work out for anyone, so I'm going to take everything slow and just go 1950s old school like find a nice gal and quarter for a while. Take her on nice dates. Open the car door, take it slow, no sex, you know, just like really get to know someone as a friend.

Alyson Charles: [01:17:34] Duke was starting to come out there a little bit.

Luke Storey: [01:17:35] Yeah, old Duke is talking about how to do relationships.

Alyson Charles: [01:17:38] You weren't whistling your S'es. Anyways-

Luke Storey: [01:17:41] I'll get to it.

Alyson Charles: [01:17:41] I really like when he turns into Duke. It's one of my favorites. I'm Mary Sue, if you all don't know that yet.

Luke Storey: [01:17:47] But, you know, I think with us, one thing at play is that we had, you know, a relationship of sorts beforehand. We were friendly. We were friends, although we didn't hang out all the time. We had some rapport and we knew a bit about one another. So, it wasn't like we just met that day. And then, next thing you know, we're moving in together. But I had this idea of going really slow, and then also that I was really interested in you because you're just a stellar person and all of the reasons that I keep explaining. And so, told me you were going to be here for New Year's Eve, so I invited you to my annual kundalini yoga party with my teacher, Tej, and all my friends, which I felt, it was kind of a big ask, you know.

Alyson Charles: [01:18:30] It was.

Luke Storey: [01:18:31] It's also your birthday. And you would not really even been on official date with someone asking them to like give up their New Year's Eve and their birthday and come hang out with you and your friends, was kind of a big ask. And when you took a couple of days, and then said, yeah, I'm going to do it, I was like, oh, shit, okay, that's-

Alyson Charles: [01:18:49] Shit's getting on and popping now.

Luke Storey: [01:18:51] Yeah. And then, you know, just had such a lovely time with you. And I remember being there with you and I was like, are you okay? And you're like, dude, I love kundalini yoga. I've been doing this for years. I'm like, what? Oh, awesome. That's such a great thing to be able to share with a partner because it's been such an instrumental part of my awakening and something I really enjoy. It just feels so amazing to do that. And then, I remember giving you a quick kiss, you know, which was our first kiss of the new year and-

Alyson Charles: [01:19:19] Will ever. That was the official pivot from brother to something else. Not to boyfriend yet and I was wondering if that was going to happen because I mean, you know, the ball drops, all those like, you know, cliche, quintessential things about New Year's Eve. And yeah. And I could feel something new conjuring. I just want to be completely honest. When you expressed that you were interested me, this was not something that I just like jumped in to.

 I had reservations because I think I felt closer to you throughout the years maybe than you did me, like I had you on my show and you moderated a panel I was on, and we did keep in touch and have some conversations. And so, I've really valued you as a friend and someone that I loved. And so, I got nervous. What if we explore these waters and one of us ends up liking the other way more than the other or what if we both really like each other, but like our kissing and our sex is horrible?

 I had all these fears coming up that made me very cautious to enter fully into this new river, this new current that had become opened via your transparency and vulnerability at the hotel that day by expressing your interest. So, there have been really cool moves along the way where you were the expander for us, where you opened up this new field of possibility. And then, I give myself credit for then like also you open up this shamanic field and I'm like, oh, no, sniff around in there, look around in there, I'm like, it actually looks and smells pretty good.

 Okay. And then, I step into that field, and then we go over here and you're like, how about New Year's Eve? I know it's a start of a new decade and start of a new year, and it's your birthday the next day, but you want to spend that night with me? And I took about five days of sniffing into that. It was like, oh, this is a big deal, this is a big decision, you know, because, you know, with me, with energetics, I'm like, it's really important who am I sharing space with, especially to start a new decade and to start my birthday with. I'm like, who do I want to share that space with energetically?

 So, after about five days of sniffing into that field that you opened up, I was like, yeah, that field is actually smelling pretty good. What's going on here? I'm going to step into this field. And it was yeah, I remembered wondering because we had not been physical at all. We had a couple of what I would consider dates of like me hanging out over here, and then like hang out with Rosie and Tory, and looking back, realizing that was actually our first double date, but we didn't know it at the time. 

 And we had spent some time together in this new current, but we had not even touched each other really. I could just feel like very, very gradually, an attraction growing because I had it completely shut off from you in years past. I only looked at you as my friend. So, even though you're really attractive, I wasn't seeing you through that lens. So, in this new current, me starting to expand into these other things that were possible was really pretty slow-moving in the beginning.

 And so, I remembered wondering, I wonder if he's going to kiss me when the ball drops, but then you like vanished. This is a hilarious part of the story. So, it's about to be my birthday. I haven't even told you this yet. This is some real juice for the listeners. You don't even know this part yet. This is so exciting. So, it's about to be my birthday, right? When the ball drops and it turns midnight, the world begins to celebrate for me and my birthday, right? And a couple minutes before it turns midnight, Luke disappears, everyone. He-

Luke Storey: [01:22:51] That's because when they're dancing there.

Alyson Charles: [01:22:53] No. So, the balloons drop, we've been doing kundalini stuff, there's wizards everywhere, all this amazing stuff's going on, two minutes before, no sign of Luke. And I'm like, this is a funny story that my head started conjuring. I've yet to tell you this because in my mind I'm like, what's going on? Why is he not going to be here for this moment at midnight? This is so weird to me. What could he be doing? So, in my mind, I'm like, well, first of all, I'm like, surely, he'll come back. That was the first one.

 But then, I realized that wasn't happening because the balloons were dropping. And then, the next story that I conjured, I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's my birthday, I bet he's out there getting a cake ready. I told myself that you're probably back there like putting candles in a cake, and that when it turned midnight, you were going to come in and like give me a birthday cake. And I was conjuring really rapidly all these hilarious narratives, none of which proved to be true.

 And so then, finally, like five or 10 after midnight, you come just sauntering back in, like, you know, nonchalant, and I'm like, what the heck? This is such an odd mystery. You know, I remember feeling I was grateful that you took the pressure off that having to kiss at that moment, though, because I didn't really think I wanted it to happen that way of like feeling forced because it's midnight and because it suddenly turned a new year that we're supposed to kiss now, so then, we did.

 So, I remember being happy that you released the pressure valve on that moment. But then, you know, 10 minutes later when you did walk back in, you did. I was standing and you did walk over to me. And I remember you put your both your hands on my arms and you said, "Let me give you your first kiss of the decade." And I was like, okay. And then, it was just like literally like a half-second peck, but that was a big moment because we had never done anything like that.

Luke Storey: [01:24:58] It would've been so weird to just try to make out with you right then.

Alyson Charles: [01:25:00] In front of everybody, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:25:02] Like bridging the friend zone is—I mean, it's probably happened before I can think of a time then-

Alyson Charles: [01:25:06] I've never done it. 

Luke Storey: [01:25:07] But yeah, it's interesting.

Alyson Charles: [01:25:10] Really weird. 

Luke Storey: [01:25:11] But now, I remember what I did?

Alyson Charles: [01:25:12] Yeah. Where were you? I still don't know the answer to this. 

Luke Storey: [01:25:15] Well, I was not preparing your cake, which would have been a great move. When they do the ball drop at the Santa Monica Women's Center thing, which I've been to a few years now, it's amazing because you go up on the balcony.

Alyson Charles: [01:25:29] Okay.

Luke Storey: [01:25:30] And it's a great place to livestream.

Alyson Charles: [01:25:32] Oh, my God. Guys, he went up to get on Instagram.

Luke Storey: [01:25:38] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [01:25:40] Wow. Case in point, I guess why—Oh, this is Jelly Bean. I want everyone to meet my cat. I know you can't see him when you're listening on the podcast, but this is Jelly. His birthday's coming up. He's going to be 13 and he's been my little mini black panther, my little spirit animal for many years, he's seen me pre-awakening and post-awakening. He's seen mommy through everything. So, thank you for coming and saying hi. Luke calls him grumplestiltskin because he's very vocal and he can be a bit of a grumpy cat, which I find hilarious. But even then, when I picked him up, he's like, so grumplestiltskin is one of his nicknames. 

Luke Storey: [01:26:18] He's a grumpy old man.

Alyson Charles: [01:26:19] He's so great though.

Luke Storey: [01:26:21] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [01:26:21] He's very smart.

Luke Storey: [01:26:22] He and Cooks are buds. They're like Tom and Jerry.

Alyson Charles: [01:26:25] Yeah, it's really cute. So, this is hilarious. This makes the story even funnier that I thought you were preparing a cake for me and you were livestreaming on Instagram. 

Luke Storey: [01:26:32] Yeah. I'm just like whatever, she can be down there, I got to go livestream.

Alyson Charles: [01:26:34] I got to go livestream, my audience needs me.

Luke Storey: [01:26:39] It was a great shot, man, you can't miss the shot.

Alyson Charles: [01:26:41] No, you really can. So, the other interesting pivotal thing that happened at this New Year's Eve event, which I feel is important to bring up, is in between all of these kundalini activations that we were doing, during one of the breaks, you pivoted and sat in front of me and you said, you know, "I'm going to do your medicine soon", because when I come over here to hang out, we were just catching up and I was sharing with you some of the really, really life-changing experiences I had had working with a sacred plant medicine.

 And you knew the one that just speaks to my soul the deepest at this juncture in my life. And so, that night at New Year's Eve, he said, I'm going to do your medicine soon. And then, in my mind, my first question is, "Well, who are you going to sit with?" Because that's of utmost importance, like who is facilitating? And you said, you know, "It's the funniest thing. I ran into my friend's Sanjay,", and you started to continue with the sentence, but right when you said Sanjay's name, I was like, what, and I said, "You're sitting with my teacher. You're sitting with my shamanic soul family", because Sanjay is in my shamanic soul family.

 And we have been together in these experiences. And so, the second you said his name, I just knew something really otherworldly was starting to conjure because the fact that you were getting looped in to my shamanic family and starting to get pulled into these kinds of practices without me orchestrating it, the fact that the medicine was, and God was, and just this bigger picture now was at orchestration, and that is that current that you were referring to earlier of how once this new pathway was opened, this other energy system has been working us. We've not been doing the orchestration.

Luke Storey: [01:28:40] Damn. Straight. Because like I was beginning to allude to, I had a very specific linear plan, like a very male way of doing things, which is like, okay, I've done these plans, those blueprints did not get the desired result of the finished building I wanted to build. And so, this time, I have this blueprint and I'm going to follow this in a very logical, linear way. It's called like how to build a healthy relationship 101, like we're going to follow the plan. And that plan didn't include going off to the desert and doing peyote and becoming a couple in one weekend.

Alyson Charles: [01:29:17] I wish I had my rattle. It's right out there. I had it in here.

Luke Storey: [01:29:20] So, yeah. And the interesting thing about that, just the synchronicity and how the universe works in such mysterious ways is that I don't even know Sanjay that well. We've met a few times. I'm a huge fan of one of his musical projects called Feather and Dot. I use their music in my workshops and it's amazing kundalini mantra music, very modern and awesome. Unlike some of the cornier kundalini mantra music, no offense, but some of it is pretty junky, but, you know, he lives in LA, but he lives elsewhere also, and stuff like that.

 But one day, I ran into him. I just got back from Costa Rica to go to Soltara, which I've done podcast about before. And I ran into him at Tej at Nine Treasures Yoga, and I said, "Oh, I just got back from Costa Rica. I was doing some medicine work on there. It was amazing, huge transformations, awakenings, healings, et cetera." And he's like, "Oh, no way, have you ever done peyote?" And I said, "No." He said, "Well, it's my birthday next weekend or whenever it was, and, you know, my teachers are going to be on their kind of tour. And if you want to come sit, you know, come along."

 And that was, you know, what I explained to you. And of course, it was Oscar and Vivien, who, by the way, those was listening, there will be an episode that I already recorded with said guides, Oscar and Vivien, amazing couple that really were at the forefront of this relationship developing as energy workers, medicine keepers, and as models for a really beautiful, sacred, aligned relationship.

Alyson Charles: [01:30:46] 100%.

Luke Storey: [01:30:47] So, yeah. So, I tell you, I'm going to the thing on New Year's Eve, and then we're on the phone sometime after that the next few days.

Alyson Charles: [01:30:55] No, I texted. Yeah, yeah. 

Luke Storey: [01:30:56] Yeah. But after you've gone back to New York, I think you said like, "Have a good time at the thing", or something.

Alyson Charles: [01:31:01] No, I asked you. I remember very well.

Luke Storey: [01:31:03] You're the memory keeper. You tell the story.

Alyson Charles: [01:31:04] Yeah. So, I texted you because I wanted to hold energetic space for you. And so, it pinged in. Yeah, I'm back in Brooklyn at this point and I just texted you and said, "Hey, can you remind me what weekend is the ceremony?" And truly because, you know, I'm honest about everything, I was genuinely just wanting to know so that while you were in that zone, I could just hold space for you because I knew was your first time going into that particular kind of ceremony with that medicine, even though you've traversed many others. So, when you saw that text, you sent the date. And then, the next, I think was like an hour or two later, you came in with this other expander question, another expander, pivotal point, taking me into a new field, you said few simple words, "Why? Do you want to come?

 Because I had just gotten back to New York, so I was not thinking at all about, even though I love Oscar and Vivien to the utmost, I just wasn't going to fly right back. But when you asked me that, I thought, you know, why not? Yeah, I do want to go. I love Oskar and Vivien. Their tour's wrapping up soon. I love Sanjay. It's his birthday. I want to keep exploring all of this incredible alchemy that's so clearly happening with you and I. I'm manifesting my move to LA anyways, like I got up a sheet of paper and I wrote the pros and cons. 

Luke Storey: [01:32:31] For real?

Alyson Charles: [01:32:31] Yeah, I made a list. And there was just literally no reason for me to stay in Brooklyn. And there were all the reasons for me to get another plane ticket right then and fly right back the next day. And that's what I did. And I just love that our first trip that we ever took together was loading up the car with all of the tools you need for a ceremony, you know, the ponchos. And just because we knew we were going to be in a desert and we needed to really be prepared because it was going to be cold, we would be in a teepee and just loading up the car together.

 And our first trip ever together was going out to sacred lands in a desert to sit together in sacred ceremony with my shamanic family and my teachers. You cannot make this stuff up and you could not have written a better script for the love story that is, you know, in my opinion, on my side over here, it could not have been scripted better because I'd been praying for that for years, that it always been my ultimate vision to sit with my sacred divine partner, to sit next to my king in a sacred ceremony, doing that kind of evolutionary work, that kind of sacred work together. To me, that is the highest vision. So, to be having that manifesting so quickly, it just was really mind-blowing and beyond special to me.

Luke Storey: [01:34:03] And that was one of those situations where I really had to follow my intuition and my logic because logically, sharing that experience with someone that I think we'd been on one official date at that point? I took you to dinner party before that, I think, right? 

Alyson Charles: [01:34:20] I don't even remember if it was before. 

Luke Storey: [01:34:22] I remember like we had hung out, but they weren't really dates, like I'm like, I really want to take you on a date and treat you like a lady and like, do the thing, like we're dating now, you know. I mean, not exclusively because at that point, I thought, well, we're probably still going to date other people and see how things come together. And eventually, you'll move out here, and then we'll see how it goes. And I had this kind of plan together. You know, I was hoping it would work out, but it was kind of a move for me where we were at that point to share that kind of depth of an experience with someone who we're just kind of testing the waters. We're not a couple per se, right?

Alyson Charles: [01:34:58] Yeah. No, we did not go into the desert as a couple. We left the desert as a couple.

Luke Storey: [01:35:04] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [01:35:04] We did not head into the sacred grounds that way.

Luke Storey: [01:35:07] That was where my head was like, is this a good idea, Luke? Should you be doing it this way? Does this really make sense? And I had just been like, shut up, brain, like this feels right. The 51% of me is leaning like this would be cool. Like if there's a way to get to know someone, this is a pretty good way to do it.

Alyson Charles: [01:35:20] Oh, it doesn't get any more vulnerable than that.

Luke Storey: [01:35:22] Yeah. And so, ensued, you know, a two-day, two-night ceremony. My first time ever sitting with medicine. And, you know, that's a whole other podcast, as I said, coming out. It's a medicine that I've been drawn to six times total now, at this point, at the time of this recording. And every time, I'm like, why am I doing this? I don't like this stuff.

Alyson Charles: [01:35:44] And you say you'll never do it again.

Luke Storey: [01:35:45] Yeah. And then, you know, I get awakenings and realizations. And, you know, the biggest one being the realization of wow, we're a thing, which is, it's almost hard to explain and tell the story because it just enters into the mystical realms.

Alyson Charles: [01:36:01] Miracles.

Luke Storey: [01:36:01] And it's a non-linear thing. But essentially, I think for me, it was you having had experience with those teachers, that tribe. And in that experience, it had a certain depth and sacredness to you that it didn't have to me yet.

Alyson Charles: [01:36:21] Correct.

Luke Storey: [01:36:21] To me, it's like, well, this is an interesting date to have with someone for a couple of days. It's kind of a fast move forward for me, because where are we going to sleep? Do we sleep in the same bed? We weren't intimate in any way, really, at that point, and even for some time afterward. And so, you know, like I'm trying to do the right thing here, goddammit, and go slow and like be healthy and like, chill and like, really take my time.

Alyson Charles: [01:36:44] But the one thing that took a little pressure off that piece is I work with all of facets of my shamanic working path with the utmost sacredness and integrity. And you need to be celibate leading up to ceremony and in the days after. And so, I had expressed that to you before I even got the plane ticket. I just wanted to get that out of the way. Even though we had not been intimate yet, I just wanted to remind you, like look, even though I'm flying back out there, I work with medicine and with shamanism in this way. I know you know that, but I'm just going to reiterate. You are to be celibate before and after. And that will 100% be how I roll.

Luke Storey: [01:37:24] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [01:37:24] So, that took some of that.

Luke Storey: [01:37:25] And then, I was like, well, is your plane ticket refundable?

Alyson Charles: [01:37:28] Right. And you got LOLs on that one. You really did make me laugh. That was a good one, honey.

Luke Storey: [01:37:34] So, you know, I mean, the story of the ceremony itself is just so otherworldly, but there are, A, Oscar and Vivien are leading it. They have this beautiful, high-level spiritual relationship and a deep love that's just palpable. I mean, you get around them and you just go, oh, my God, my experience is like, whatever they're doing, I want that.

Alyson Charles: [01:37:55] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:37:55] Like that's the type of relationship I want, just so reverent, and deep, and fun, and just the way that they've interweaved their work together and the way their energies balance one another, it's just really, really amazing to be in that space with them. Add to that, you know, the mystical peyote button. These freaking cactuses that you eat that taste like-

Alyson Charles: [01:38:20] Be nice.

Luke Storey: [01:38:21] ... that taste beautiful. 

Alyson Charles: [01:38:22] Be reverent.

Luke Storey: [01:38:23] That taste holy and sandy.

Alyson Charles: [01:38:24] It's very sandy.

Luke Storey: [01:38:29] Bitter and chewy. But, you know, in the medicine, from my point of view, this is what happened. Like every time I do that medicine, I'm like looking at my watch, like, is this working? Is anything happening here? Nope. I don't think so. I just feel kind of annoyed, tired, my back hurts, feel pretty nauseous and like, wow, okay, really? And then, I surrender into that resistance and surrender into the resistance and surrender into the resistance.

Alyson Charles: [01:38:51] For hours and hours and hours.

Luke Storey: [01:38:51] Yeah. But anyway, during this two-day, two-night ceremony, there were a number of different micro- ceremonies within the macro-ceremony, where couples had the opportunity to share in those ceremonies together. Flower blessing, different moments at which you're kind of paired off. To me, we're there and we're together, not together, together, but we're there, male and female, potential couple, dating-ish, on a date of sorts. And there's this experience that we went through that I just kind of, you know, I'm under the medicine. I don't really know what is going on. I've never done it before. I'm all just kind of figuring this out and taking it in as it comes.

Alyson Charles: [01:39:34] Right.

Luke Storey: [01:39:34] And so, we participated in some of these things. And in those micro-ceremonies, which I kind of agreed us into and led us into, those had much deeper meaning for you than they did for me. And they were indicators to you that, holy shit, this guy is really stepping up and like he's taking us into the realm of-

Alyson Charles: [01:39:52] He's taking the lead into that, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:39:54] Into coupleship. And I'm like thinking, we're going to keep dating for a while. She's going back to New York, like this is just-. 

Alyson Charles: [01:39:59] And you're just tired in the teepee, and you're just like, it's our turn.

Luke Storey: [01:40:02] Yeah. And so, anyway, so we go through that, and then we get back to our Airbnb, and she's alone in there for a while, I go take a hot tub and just kind of decompress and try and get my feet back under me in that experience. And then, you say, you know, "Listen, there's some things on my mind-"

Alyson Charles: [01:40:22] No, no, no. This goes back to my memory being a bit clearer.

Luke Storey: [01:40:25] Okay.

Alyson Charles: [01:40:25] I'm lying on the bed, and you're in the shower, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, please, when he gets back into this bedroom, please don't let him say to me, "I am so exhausted. I've got to go to bed right away", because I knew I needed to talk to you. And I had been clearly shown, the medicine had so clearly shown me when we got back to our Airbnb, so you sit in ceremony for those that don't know from like 9:00 or 10:00 at night. And then, you are up and sitting upright.

 Well, depends on who's facilitating and all that. But we sit up and sit upright all night. And then, when the sunrise happens, you go out and connect. But then, there's the sharing circle that can sometimes last for hours in the teepee, and then there's like communal food. So, we didn't get back to our Airbnb until like very late in the afternoon the next day. And the medicine had spoken to me when I had private time back at our Airbnb, it had so clearly shown me three specific points that I needed to bring up with you.

 And they were on the crunchier side, as I like to call it, and I thought, oh my gosh, I could feel this was going to kind of be a game-changing moment for us because this was going to be some challenging stuff to bring up to you. And I remembered being scared that when you got out of the shower, you're going to be too tired to talk. And I knew I needed to get this out of my system. So, thank God, when you got back into the bed, you go, you said, "You didn't share in the sharing circle. How was your night?"

Luke Storey: [01:41:55] I mean, every once in a while, someone will pass because they're just, you know, in a different space. But yeah, I was like, oh, that's weird. Why was your share omitted?

Alyson Charles: [01:42:04] Right. And I was like, funny you should ask. I've got some things I need to talk to you about, not share in the sharing circle. So, yeah, I then said to you, I think that there were a few things that I needed to bring up that I had been in observance of during the ceremony that just felt really vital to ask you about. And there were things that had I not been in a heightened conscious state or had I not been a very consciously aware, awake person, some of these things in the past would have probably slipped under the radar. 

 Like pre-awakening, I probably would have blinded myself to these signs because I wouldn't have wanted to face these difficult conversations or to possibly hear the answer that would come from these conversations. And yet, that's not who I am anymore. And I knew I needed to go there. And I won't get into the full minutia, but the one that just keeps pinging in for me to share is during the water blessing, how, you know, Vivien was aware, Vivien and Oscar, again, as facilitator couple, and she was aware that we came together and she was seeing things about us that I think we weren't even seeing at this point, just the power of us together.

 So, you were sitting to my left, she did the water blessing for you first. When she got to me, she did the water blessing, and she was about to move on. She started to move to the person sitting to my right. But then, something stopped her and she paused. And she said to us, "So, are you two a couple?" And at that moment, I then looked to you to together discern what our response would be. And as I looked to you, you remained with your eyes shut. And that was beyond just like symbolic.

 You know, that was saying a lot to me that when this question of are we a couple was being posed to us by the shamanic facilitator, the leader of the ceremonies asking us, you kept your eyes closed to the topic, to the subject matter. And I thought, I can't ignore that. He is closing himself off to this question. He's closing himself off to this possibility and sleeping this question. So, that was one of the three peyote bullet points that I was advised to bring up with you. And I have to give you so much credit. I give us both credit for just doing any of this.

 But then, that was the game-changing moment because that's the thing we talked about at the beginning of the podcast. It's those precise moments where the person can get defensive and you did the complete opposite. You leaned in energetically and physically. You like laid over. I was laying in the bed, and you laid over my legs, and you leaned into me, and you were so genuine, and so thoughtful, and just so connected in this process. 

 You didn't flinch, you didn't get weird, you didn't get defensive. And you were so willing right away to explore what I had observed that you were unaware of. And that's such a testament to where you are on the path and just as a human. And you being willing to have this kind of level of conversation with me in the way, in the capacity that you were, that's then when my mind got blown. And I thought, oh, my God, this is what I've been praying for.

 And it was through. And then, I'll let you take it from here. It was through the discussion of this that then you partly had to watch the piece that doesn't want to be in discomfort, which you acknowledged a few days ago on a walk that was slightly at play. And then, the bigger piece of you that just, you know, goes beyond logic, just goes into that intuitive sense of you saying then to me, "Well-"

Luke Storey: [01:46:11] Yeah, I think what I was up against in that interaction was, again, the analytical, logical mind trying to make sense of something that you can't make sense out of because where that ceremony had taken us in your experience and where you saw me kind of not being there with you and you're going like, what? Well, answer the question. Your eyes are closed. And like all these kinds of things. The realization there was, huh, there's something going on here with this woman that is on a different level that you can't figure out with your brain, and that there is a time—how do we say it? 

 There's a time frame and a structure here that is currently being built as we're having this conversation that you can't figure out and there's no right way to do this. And so, in that was that really trusting my heart and my intuition, and having to discard the safety net of a structure that I had built, which again, would have been like, we're going away. We're friends. We kind of know each other. We're getting to know each other. We're going on kind of a weekend date together, not as a couple, as two people that are pursuing dating, getting to know one another.

 Then, in this ceremony, there is these incredibly spiritually bonding, sacred, very meaningful experiences that meant something to you that I was totally oblivious to. And when they were brought to my attention in that conversation, I had to have the open-mindedness and the compassion for you like, oh, my God, shit, that really sucks that you're kind of there open, this beautiful woman who's not afraid, who doesn't have this analytical framework of how this is supposed to go, but you're like, whoa, this is turning to a thing, and I'm afraid of it being a thing not according to my plan because in the past, when I've just gone with the flow, the flow has been, at times, very painful for all parties involved.

 So, at that point, you know, aside from just acknowledging your feelings and allowing you to have that and not make excuses for whatever, but just to look at, huh, why did I behave like that? It's like, dude, I'm scared shitless that I'm going to get hurt or that I'm going to hurt you and that this is moving faster than it should, emotionally speaking, of course. Now, everyone, keep in mind, there's no physicality at this point at all. So, it's not going too fast, like we slept together on second date, we shouldn't have done that. It was just like, whoa, like we're in a teepee and they're doing a flower ceremony. And then, at the end of it, she's like, and you two are now married? I'm like, whoa, you know, all of my like love-

Alyson Charles: [01:48:52] Shouts to Vivien.

Luke Storey: [01:48:54] All my past love-avoidant triggers and fears of being enmeshed, or engulfed, or trapped, or moving too soon, or getting hurt, or abandoned, or whatever, or like ding, ding, ding, oh, shit, so like I closed my eyes, I'm just like, la, la, la, I can't see you or I can't hear you.

Alyson Charles: [01:49:10] She didn't just say that we were married, oh, my God.

Luke Storey: [01:49:13] Yeah. It's just too much. I'm just like, this does not make sense, I can't figure this out. And so, in that moment, you know, again, nothing good ever comes from closing. What was I going to do? Like dude, like slow down, slow your roll. Like what? I mean, I could have very easily gotten defensive or not acknowledge your experience, but instead, because of the open-heartedness that that medicine specifically creates, I mean-

Alyson Charles: [01:49:35] Yes, it is medicine of heart.

Luke Storey: [01:49:36] ... as bizarre as I find that particular cacti and its effect on you because you can't figure it out. The more you try to figured out, the more annoying it gets.

Alyson Charles: [01:49:47] The more it eludes you.

Luke Storey: [01:49:49] The more it eludes you versus some other experiences where it's just so crystal clear and I know exactly how to meander in those realms. The realms of the peyote, in my experience, are very obtuse. Is that the word? Is that a word? Obtuse? Just they're opaque and kind of vague and you don't really know what's going on. But the key thing that I'd have experienced in all six experiences is that my heart opens in a way, and there's this love that I experience for everyone and myself.

 And there's this capacity for open-heartedness. So, when you expressed what was going on with you and you had those little triggers that had come up, I was able to somehow keep my heart open, and then actually go back into my mind and use the analytical mind in a constructive way. And that's where it went next. I thought, okay, so, Luke, what you've got here is a woman who is opening her heart to you, and she's saying—and I think you even said this like, dude, I'm here. If you want to go-

Alyson Charles: [01:50:47] If you don't see me in full now, I don't know that you ever will, is what I said.

Luke Storey: [01:50:51] Yeah. And you're basically like, I'm ready to go there. And as scared as I was, because it defies all logic, this is not how this is supposed to work, you know, that's kind of where I was, I just thought, okay, well, I opened my heart and opened my mind. And then, I was brought to by intuition and the guides of sorts a list that I had made or a document, rather, that was my manifesto of the perfect mate, you know, just every attribute of their character, and values, and preferences, and lifestyle, and looks, and all the things you could want in a dream partner, I had created a vision for that. And I'd written it down, and it's in Evernote somewhere. I probably still have it.

 Well, I'm sure I do. It exists in the cloud. And so, in that moment, I remember just going, well, I'm kind of freaked out, but here's this woman, let me see how this adds up against what my vision is, and then I started to dictate to you, from memory, all of the things that I was looking for and the dream partner that I had envisioned. And, you know, 99.999% of those things were sitting there right in front of me. And no matter how many defense mechanisms I had or how afraid I was of being vulnerable or any of that, just like there was empirical evidence that not only proved to my heart, but also to my mind that this actually does make sense, you know.

Alyson Charles: [01:52:26] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:52:27] And so, it was a really interesting meeting of heart and mind because it was on paper, like I had written it when I was not on peyote, I had written it when I wasn't under the influence of hormones, or pheromones, or excitement, or, you know, the intrigue, or mystique of someone new, or any of that. None of that was there. I'm sitting right at that desk, actually, is where I wrote that freaking thing. And there it was.

 And it was like, she has this, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, on the list. And most of those things and the things that were most meaningful to me were your character attributes and who you are as a person of integrity and wisdom and kindness and all of the things that I really have grown to even cherish more in you. And you're also super-hot and all of those things too. Those are on the list, trust me. You know, I won't share that list, but, you know-

Alyson Charles: [01:53:16] Big boobs, check, check.

Luke Storey: [01:53:17] There are things like that, sure. Sure. You know, we all have our preferences. And so, in that moment, I remember just crying, I think, right? I mean, you remember the details. But inside, I was just like, oh, my God, Luke, fucking surrender. Like, let go. Just let this be what it is. And then, I think the conversation went something like, okay, well, let's give this a shot. And now, we're a couple. And I think what happened then, we finally went to sleep. This is after being up for however many, 20-hours or something.

Alyson Charles: [01:53:46] Yeah, at least.

Luke Storey: [01:53:46] I went to sleep. And I believe the next morning, you kind of gave me like a buyer's remorse clause, like a way out.

Alyson Charles: [01:53:53] Yeah, I did. I did.

Luke Storey: [01:53:53] Something to the effect of like, okay, so we had this profound deep experience. You conveyed that, you know, "You had some kind of awakening, Luke, and you're willing to give this a shot. I'm going to give you an out here like, how are you feeling this morning?"

Alyson Charles: [01:54:06] Yeah, for sure.

Luke Storey: [01:54:06] Stone cold sober. "And is this something you still want to pursue?", and all that.

Alyson Charles: [01:54:11] Well, yeah, definitely, because I'm at a place in my life like age-wise, what I want to experience, where I just am never going to want to coerce someone to be with me, like it needs to be full-on from your end, like this is a yes. And so, even before we went to bed, I said, so I was like, "Okay, how about we sleep on this? This was a lot. This was big."

Luke Storey: [01:54:36] You think? 

Alyson Charles: [01:54:37] "This is the big conversation. Let's sleep on it and let's just revisit it in the morning when we wake up." And I woke up long before you. So, yeah, when you came out, I was sitting on that yellow solar plexus, chocolate-colored couch, and you came over and I said, you know, "How are you feeling about what you said last night? How are you feeling about it now?" And I'll never forget it. You were kneeling on your knees, on the floor, kneeling in front of me, like kind of, you know, sitting in between my legs as I'm sitting on the couch, if that makes sense, and we're facing each other. 

 And I remember we just intuitively leaned in and pressed our third eyes together, so we had our foreheads touching as this conversation was starting to happen, and you said, you know, "Nothing's changed, like I feel the same." And then, I remember expressing to you that it would be my greatest honor to be with you, and to be your girlfriend, and to be together as a sacred couple. And it was in that Airbnb in the middle, the desert, you know, with our third eyes touching that we officially became a couple really quick in a weekend.

Luke Storey: [01:55:44] Yeah, defied all logic and all plans. And thankfully so, and I think that there is the time to have a plan and there's also a time to be willing to adjust that plan when your heart says otherwise, you know.

Alyson Charles: [01:55:56] And when you can feel God at work.

Luke Storey: [01:55:58] Yeah, yeah. And to, you know, acknowledge like what's motivating you to move in one direction or the other. And I just had to trust like I hope I'm not delusional right now. And I hope I'm not being motivated by trying to please you or whatever, could be motivating-

Alyson Charles: [01:56:12] Trying to escape the discomfort of that conversation.

Luke Storey: [01:56:14] Yeah, totally, totally. And that occurred to me, like am I doing it? Am I doing it? Shit. Do I just want to make everything okay? And I did just want to make everything okay because it was uncomfortable as fuck. But also, I could have said like too fast, like whoa, pump the brakes, like, let's go back home, you know, take the time.

Alyson Charles: [01:56:31] And you said you knew though, if you had done that, you could feel that it was going to be a wrap for me.

Luke Storey: [01:56:35] Yeah. I don't think it was a negotiation for you. I got the sense that you were like, dude, if you can't see me like I'm here, I'm open. You were so vulnerable and so receptive. And I just admired the courage that it took to put yourself out there in that way. And it was like, damn, she's really putting herself on the line here, and I don't want to discount that. And so, you know, there's a million other stories, but I want to move toward kind of wrapping it up. 

Alyson Charles: [01:57:03] Since we've been talking for three hours?

Luke Storey: [01:57:04] It's two. But, you know, hey, man, maybe there's, you know, a couple of people hanging on line that might be inspired that there is hope because I honestly, at times, in my life thought like maybe, as you said earlier that, like I suck at this, and I'm just never going to get it right, and maybe I just have to learn how to be alone. And I never totally gave up hope, but I did consider that as an option.

Alyson Charles: [01:57:26] Exact same for me.

Luke Storey: [01:57:26] Maybe I'm just too broken or karmically like that's not my path, and I'm just supposed to be by myself as I have been, really, most of my life, at least in my heart, you know. So, I think the funny thing about it is that the bond between us has continued on very untraditional and unexpected ways because we still, and this was the one part of my plan that we did get according to my plan, was that we weren't physically intimate for quite a while-

Alyson Charles: [01:57:55] A long time.

Luke Storey: [01:57:56] ... into the relationship and well after we had decided to be committed and monogamous. And I mean, I don't think we ever used the word monogamous. It's just implied that we're together. And that means you're not together with other people, which I love. But it just then that piece became no big deal. And I was very afraid when I was dating to express that because modern women don't really understand that, like let's date for a while and not have sex until we're together.

Alyson Charles: [01:58:23] Not all modern women because definitely, I was celibate for basically five years. So-

Luke Storey: [01:58:27] Well, you're an exception. But I have experience where a woman is like, wait, what?

Alyson Charles: [01:58:34] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:58:35] What year is this, dude? Are you serious? That's because I was so free-willing in the past, as I said. I mean, I just wasn't that discriminating about with whom or when I decided to be intimate. And that gets tricky, you know. Hearts get hurt when you're careless, mine and others. And I'm regretful of some of those experiences. So, I thought I'm going to really honor the physicality element and make sure that I'm really wanting to be with someone and I can fully have a heart-centered physical experience, and not be thinking like, are they with other people? Am I? And like all that, I just don't want all that messiness. But for us, it was just done for us through medicine journeys and different things go, you know, cycles, and different things. 

Alyson Charles: [01:59:14] Cycle, all the nature-based, sacred, divine things were not letting us be intimate.

Luke Storey: [01:59:19] It kept us from being intimate for quite a long time, which was fine with me because that's how I wanted it. I wanted it to be special. I wanted to get to know someone. I wanted to have more meaning and sacredness around the physical part because as I said in the past, at times, there hadn't been. And I know what that's like. And I want more of that experience. So, there's that. But the really funny thing, the plan, and I don't know if I've ever illustrated this to you in terms of my linear timetable. 

 But it was like, meet a few people, date a few people, you know, you're going to gravitate toward the one you most bond with and kind of eventually weed out the other, become exclusive with the one person that you like the most and they like you the most, then you date, you know, exclusively for maybe a year. You each have your own houses and your own lives. And then, if that all goes well, then eventually you move in together and maybe after a year, at least, you know, and so on, and do well.

Alyson Charles: [02:00:11] Yeah, you've told me this. 

Luke Storey: [02:00:12] You know, a period after that, perhaps you propose, you get engaged, and not way long after that, you get married. And then, maybe down the road, you have kids. You know, it's kind of like-. 

Alyson Charles: [02:00:19] Well, at that point, I would be like a 60-year old mother, you know, But, anyways-

Luke Storey: [02:00:24] Yeah, apart from that. We are biohackers, though, whether you like it or not. But anyway, I had this kind of linear plan, so moving in together was not going to—I mean, that was like, what? No. You had an apartment in New York. You had to go get this thing together. And then, you know, we were going to move out here. And I think initially, just logically, I thought, well, yeah, she'll go get her apartment somewhere, a house or whatever. 

 And then, you know, we'll see each other when we see each other, and we each have our own separate places until we're really sure that we'll move in. But somehow, in this unspoken way, I don't think either of us ever expressly said it, but it sort of was just implied or just naturally happened that you were going to come out here for a longer period of time and just stay here at my house. And then, it's kind of just like you're just living here. Then, this corona virus shit hits and you can't leave.

Alyson Charles: [02:01:15] No, no, no. That's not how it happened at all, honey. We had decided that I was coming to move before the pandemic hits.

Luke Storey: [02:01:25] Yes, I know that.

Alyson Charles: [02:01:26] Oh.

Luke Storey: [02:01:26] I know that. But I'm just saying that, see that we're going to fight on air here, guys. God damn it. I'm right.

Alyson Charles: [02:01:32] Give me something to throw.

Luke Storey: [02:01:33] Frying pan, please.

Alyson Charles: [02:01:34] Give me that school bus toy.

Luke Storey: [02:01:35] What I'm saying is we just sort of very naturally, before a logical time table, started living together. And then, this pandemic hit. And we're going, oh, my God, thank God we're able to trust the heart plan and not the brain plan because you'd be stuck in New York or going to live with your folks or do whatever you do, and I'd be sitting in this goddamn house alone. No offense, Cookie, but I'd be sitting here with my dog.

Alyson Charles: [02:01:58] Well, yeah. When we went on one of those walks, that's what I was acknowledging and giving gratitude for, is that had either one of us, at any point in this pathway, any point in the juncture, yanked back, tethered back, flinched, gotten in fear mode, said no, not remained open, it would have thrown a glitch into this divine plan because I came out here with the cat to officially move in. And then, within 48 hours, like the pandemic erupted. So, had either of us pulled back at all, this whole thing, this current beautiful situation that we have would have been totally different, you're right. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:02:39] Yeah. It's really just interesting to observe how destiny, fate, karma, grace, luck-

Alyson Charles: [02:02:45] Divine timing, miracles.

Luke Storey: [02:02:46] ... has played a part in this and how it's been such a relief to be able to share this time together and being cooped up. And it's also been a really good stress tester of the relationship because, you know, you get to know someone, and it's relatively new, and you take a trip or you move in really quick or you do whatever, and you're forced to spend a lot of time on top of each other, you can annoy the shit out of each other, even if you really like one another and have a great relationship. So, I think it's fascinating that you and I have been spending so much time inside this house.

Alyson Charles: [02:03:17] You couldn't be spending more time together.

Luke Storey: [02:03:19] Yeah, it's like an extended honeymoon that lasts months, and we're just having the best time ever. And I just appreciate that about you and I appreciate that, God, thank God, we're not going through this weird time on our own individually because, you know, there is such a safety in numbers and such a coziness and a love in the house that makes having to be home actually kind of nice. I'm really not really missing anything because everything I want is right here under the roof, including you.

Alyson Charles: [02:03:50] Thanks, honey.

Luke Storey: [02:03:53] And we will wrap it up, but, you know, I wanted to get into some of your path a bit and just shamanism and things like that, but one question that did pop in my head that I think would be interesting, as we've just described how this plant medicine, the peyote, really facilitated the speed at which our relationship has moved and the structure and the opening of our minds and hearts and us being able to operate in a place of trust that has obviously proven itself thus far to be legitimate, what would you say to someone who thinks plant medicines are a drug, and that if you go to a ceremony that you're off doing drugs or something like that? Because I know some people have not had that experience and they equate a mind-altering substance like peyote as drinking alcohol or doing cocaine or any of that.

Alyson Charles: [02:04:43] Oh, God. So, I'm like feeling so many huge waves. Even just hearing you pose the question that way hurt my heart so much.

Luke Storey: [02:04:50] Well, as someone myself that anyone that's listened this show, you know, I, you know, quit doing drugs and drinking 23 years ago because I had to and wanted to. It was not a successful mission for me. I was in a world of hurt. And so, I cleaned up my act. And I'm very grateful that I've been on the path of the straight and narrow since then. And in the past year-plus or so, I've had a number of different experiences in the plant medicine realm, not for recreational purposes, whatsoever.

 And anyone that's done them can attest that there's not any recreation in doing four nights of ayahuasca or peyote or whatever it is, it's work, you know, if that's what your intention is. And so, it's something that's really opened up new worlds of healing, and understanding for me, and spiritual growth, and connection in a way that I'm so grateful for, and is so profound. And for me, it's just such a different thing than doing a drug to escape or something of that nature, you know. And-

Alyson Charles: [02:05:46] Right. Right. Right.

Luke Storey: [02:05:47] So, I know this is something you understand, but I think many people don't understand what the difference is. And I think some people perhaps think people like me are deluding myself and that I'm just finding an excuse to do drugs and calling it medicine or something of that nature.

Alyson Charles: [02:06:04] Well, one of the interesting points you really hit on, you know, is the antithesis, you know, yeah, drugs to distract or to numb, and plant medicines are the complete opposite. It's to face one's self. You know, so that right there is huge, complete opposite difference. So, for me, I won't get into it too long because I know we've got to wrap soon, but the place from which I operate from shamanically when it comes to plant medicines is you only work with a plant medicine if it calls to you because each of these plant medicines have a spirit. They are a living spirit.

 And so, this highest divine intelligence and consciousness, an energetic frequency and vibration that is this living being, that is this living spirit, that is grandmother medicine, ayahuasca, grandfather medicine, peyote or whatever the other examples are. The spirit of this plant, if it wishes to commune with you and wishes to work with you, it will call to you. And this call will be unmistakable in some way. You will just know, there is just a deep knowingness that the spirit of peyote is calling to you. 

 And if you are questioning whether it's a call, it will continue to come in. And the call, most times, will get louder and clearer and more frequent. And so, in my journey, after my divine intervention and spiritual awakening day, I then set on a quest to just heal and hold myself. It was never a quest to become a shaman. It was in my devotion to heeding the calls and the guidance from my surrender moment to great father sky, great spirit guide, consciousness source, and down into great Mother Earth, Pachamama, Gaia, surrendering to those places and asking for their guidance, they would show me the different healers I needed to go to, to heal myself.

 In that devotion to that healing work, I had done enough practices that my internal light body and frequencies and codes had turned on. The ancient wisdom of my calling had turned on that I am a shaman. And I had been a shaman and on the shamanic path for many, many, many years having never done a plant medicine. And in fact, at some point, actually kind of started—I'm not proud of this, but I started to pride myself on the fact that I was a shamanic practitioner who had never done plant medicines because there are so many misconceptions and misunderstandings and confusions around shamanism in general.

 And one of the biggest is that it automatically equates to plant medicine usage. And that is not true. And so, it would blow people's minds when I would do podcast interviews or just in conversation when they would be like, wait a second, you're a shaman and you've never done plant medicine? And I'm like, yes. So, I took that as an opportunity to educate and to teach. And I began to like that. So, the first plant medicine they began to call to me was ayahuasca. 

 And I know there's not time unfortunately for me to get into these really wild stories, how they presented and just the way it all came to me is really, really wild and miraculous. But I really had to question in that first ceremony that I actually didn't even know I was going to turn in to plant medicine ceremony. It's very wild. But then, I had to confront that within myself of like, oh, I need to let this identity go, that I'm a shaman who has never done plant medicine or never worked in a sacred way with plant medicine.

 So, I had to really let that identity break down. And I have just, in a most honoring and sacred way, only worked with the medicines that have called to me. And that's how I do it and that's how I advise it because they will provide to you with wherever your soul is at, they will provide to you whatever energetic medicine, messages and guidance that your soul needs at that time for your evolution to go where you need to go next. And that's the beauty of it.

 You may work with ayahuasca once and grandmother spirit gives you what you need and you may never hear the call to work with that plant medicine again. And that might actually be your journey with plant medicine, is that one ceremony or you may continuously, like some people have filled and called to open up a facility. You know, the call for that particular medicine grows to that magnitude, where for me, it was just a couple of grandmother medicine ceremonies.

 And then, the call, gosh, I wish I had time to tell the peyote some story, but I don't. The way that came in was so pronounced and just so deep and profound for me that the call, I will just continue to honor it when and if it comes in. And if it never comes in again, I'm fine with that because I live by the calls. And that is personally how I feel these spirits, and these highest intelligences, and consciousness, and plants should be worked with.

 They should never be worked with in a dishonoring way. They should be done only with the highest of intentions, facilitated by people that devote their life to these practices, that take sacred oaths to work with these medicines, and do it in the most reverent way, and not as that is just what I choose to do, and that's what I advise people to do. I don't know if that even answered your question, but that's what came out.

Luke Storey: [02:11:53] Well, it certainly was passionate.

Alyson Charles: [02:11:55] Okay. Yeah, you get me talking about shamanism, and yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:11:57] Well, you know, I think in the context of, you know, wrapping up the story of how-

Alyson Charles: [02:11:58] That is the most sacred work. And recreational drug use is not bad.

Luke Storey: [02:12:08] Yeah. Well, I think what's interesting is, you know, the fruits of our experience would have been much different had we gone to the desert and went on a Coke binge for two days or a drinking binge or-

Alyson Charles: [02:12:20] Wow, even just hearing you say that feels so weird.

Luke Storey: [02:12:25] Well, I mean, like that's the contrast between those experiences, as you said so correctly, the opposite of escaping from your current reality, medicines done with the right people, at the right time, in the right way bring you deeper into yourself and into reality, however uncomfortable that even might be at some point or in other circumstances. For me, those experiences have been absolute, sheer, utter bliss, oneness and communion with God.

 And for anyone that's not had that type of experience brought about through medicines, that could sound unlikely or impossible. But when you've been there, you just know. And I just think that that piece of our relationship is really interesting and something that I'm glad we had the opportunity to share an experience together because as you said earlier, part of my vision was someone that was open-minded to that experience. 

 But is also not someone who does habitual recreational drugs or alcohol, and no judgment against people that do, damn, my hats off to you, have fun, have one for me, but that's just not my path. And I really would not want to be in a relationship with someone who drinks or like smokes weed habitually or like does drugs to escape or even just to party and have fun, even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's just not-

Alyson Charles: [02:13:47] Yeah, I don't do any of that.

Luke Storey: [02:13:48] Yeah. And that was one thing that was like on my list, was someone who is like doesn't do drugs, you know, doesn't have issues in that way, but is also in understanding of respectful of and open-minded or willing to participate in the other side of that, which is, you know-

Alyson Charles: [02:14:08] Sacred ceremony.

Luke Storey: [02:14:09] Yeah, sacred ceremony or the use of clinical psychedelics with a therapist or, you know, some of the things that are opening up now in both realms, both clinically and in terms of shamanically. So, I just feel like I won the lottery in so many ways, that being just one of them. And I think it's an important distinction to make for people who don't have the experience or lack the understanding and think that all of those things are categorized together as one thing because they're most certainly not.

Alyson Charles: [02:14:36] Absolutely.

Luke Storey: [02:14:37] So, I just wanted to touch on that and get your perspective as someone who is kind of like me, even though, you know, you don't have the past that I have and a reason for avoiding drug abuse.

Alyson Charles: [02:14:49] Right. Like I've never, you know, said one day like, okay, I'm becoming sober. It's just that just organically opened up for me. I just became sober because the vibrations, the lower vibrations of alcohol and marijuana and some of those things, for me, just energetically were not a match. So, it just phased itself out.

Luke Storey: [02:15:09] Yeah. I remember when you found the bottle of red wine in my kitchen a couple of weeks ago.

Alyson Charles: [02:15:12] It felt so off.

Luke Storey: [02:15:13] Like, what is this doing in here? I'm like, I don't know. Someone left it here, whatever. It's just, I don't even know it was there. When I did, I was just going to leave it in case someone came over at some point in-

Alyson Charles: [02:15:22] Energetically, it felt so weird.

Luke Storey: [02:15:23] Want to drink? And you're going to be like, can we get rid of this? I was like, that's cool. That's my girl.

Alyson Charles: [02:15:27] It just felt super low vibe.

Luke Storey: [02:15:30] Yeah, it's funny.

Alyson Charles: [02:15:30] And again, I'm not judging. Just for me energetically in my life, you know, if you're sitting having a glass of wine right now, fine. It's just for me, the energetics of that feel very low.

Luke Storey: [02:15:44] Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [02:15:44] And I want it out of the house.

Luke Storey: [02:15:46] Oh. 

Alyson Charles: [02:15:47] Get it out of here.

Luke Storey: [02:15:47] I gave it away actually. I gave it away. I did. That was a good call. Okay. So, in wrapping this up, I've been watching you diligently work on your book. You've got an amazing book deal, which has unfolded since we've been together, which was a huge dream of yours.

Alyson Charles: [02:16:03] So, beautiful, yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:16:04] So, the book, well, you know, you're writing it now, so won't be out by the time this comes out, but tell us about the premise of your book and stuff just as a little sneak peek.

Alyson Charles: [02:16:12] Well, teaser taster. Yes. So, the book is called Power, Animals, Energy, Medicine and Meditations for your Greatest Life. And I am writing a fresh, new, modern and sacred spirit animal guidebook. So, I'm going to be featuring 100 different animals. I am a medium for the spirit animal world. And that has been something that opened up from the day I had my awakening. And that relationship with the spirit animal kingdom has only grown and grown and grown every day for many years to the point where I channel their messages and give life readings. I'm a medium for them.

 In a very sacred honoring way, I'm one of the voices for them. So, each animal will share their channeled messages and the healing traits and properties that they're known for. And then, there's a power practice for each animal so that, you know, I wanted to go beyond just, oh, I see ladybugs all the time, so I go to the ladybug entry tree, and I read that she represents this, and then what? Because people always are like, and then what? 

 So, these power practices are channeled rituals, and meditations, and practices specifically designed for that animal so that you can deepen the rapport and understanding of why they're coming into your life, and learning in a hundred different ways how you can work with the spirit animal world because it has been one of the biggest game changers for me. And then, there will also be a card deck with it. So, I'm super excited. I guess we'll put this out there, I hadn't even thought about this until this moment, but I am sharing with some of the animals, people that have had really life changing experiences working with a particular animal.

 Some of the incredible indigenous elders I know, some of the very high-level spiritual teachers that I know. They've already contributed for the animal that they want to share about, and celebrities, just different people. So, I don't even know where they'll submit their responses. But if somebody is listening and you've had a really life-changing sacred experience working with a particular animal, maybe send a message to one of us. And for us-

Luke Storey: [02:18:20] Alysoncharles.com.

Alyson Charles: [02:18:21] Yeah, you can go to my website.

Luke Storey: [02:18:22] Contact form.

Alyson Charles: [02:18:23] Yeah. There's a contact form. Okay. Thanks for help me out with that piece because I was not going to say this at all, but if you feel called and your story feels in alignment, then maybe I'll get back in touch, and you will perhaps be one of the stories in the Power Animals book, yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:18:38] Awesome.

Alyson Charles: [02:18:39] Aho.

Luke Storey: [02:18:40] And I'm sure I'll mention it in the show notes, but then, you and I, one of them will have already passed because it would have come out yesterday at the time of this release, but we're going to be doing this Friday actually on April 24th, 11:30 to 12:30 Pacific Time, a livestream event together, right?

Alyson Charles: [02:19:01] I know. So fun, so cute, honey.

Luke Storey: [02:19:03] Yeah, I'm excited with frequency mind. And so, people can go to lukestorey.com/events. So many of our live events, mine and yours, have been postponed due to this current situation. So, everyone's kind of coming up with unique and creative ways to spend time together online. So, we'll do that together this Friday.

Alyson Charles: [02:19:20] Yeah, it's really cool.

Luke Storey: [02:19:21] And then, tell us about your online course that you've also been working very hard on.

Alyson Charles: [02:19:27] I have. I've really poured my heart and soul into this. So, thank you for asking. It's called Soul Reboot Spirit School. And I had done a first version of this, this past summer, and it was so life-changing for all the participants that I knew I wanted to do another round. So, the irony of divine timing, I filmed this version of Soul Reboot Spirit School in San Francisco, two cameras, so it can be available to anyone across the world. And it was like the next day that the pandemic broke out.

 And when I was asking myself, you know, how can I? Because I was deep diving once this erupted and really learning the new energy systems. And I wasn't feeling very activated on social. And I kept asking, how can I be most of service? And one of the ways and one of the answers that came through, it was genuinely through this course. So, it's a nine-class online course. And every single class, I guide you in different really, really potent, powerful shamanic journeys and meditations to explore. 

 Pretty much, I mean, we're covering a lot of the dimensions and facets of ourselves. There are guided shamanic journeys to meet your core power spirit animal or if you already know that one, you can call the animal for that wants to work with you most at this time. There are past life journeys. There are shadow work journeys for you to face and transcend your greatest fears, which is an absolute vital key in embodying your greatest power.

 And it's just so wild to realize that these courses could not be more perfect for this time because it's really going to help people birth a new trust, a deeper trust within themselves. It's going to teach you how to access and communicate with the unseen realms because everything is changing. And we're entered into what we call it, shamanism is a void, an energetic void, which is what is occurring on the planet. And any time you get thrust into that, it can feel very foreign, and confronting, and scary.

 And Soul Reboot Spirit School or all these incredibly powerful rituals and practices that can keep you centered in your power, and you can really align with your calling. So, a lot of people have lost their jobs. And I can tell you from experience, you can come out of these voided states as your grandest, brightest self. These spaces also are the field of infinite possibilities. So, I'm going to take you into the spaces of these different possibilities so you can emerge like a phoenix rising and not have this time, you know, take you down. It can be a very miraculous time.

 So, for your listeners, we'll do a code. If this speaks to you, which I hope it does, you can go to soulreboot.alysoncharles.com. And then, when you're checking out, just put the code, life stylist, and they'll get 10% off. And I just made this very accessible and affordable. And no matter where you're out on the spiritual path, this course will serve you. Whether you're brand new and you want to be held in safe, sacred space, I do that or whether you've been walking it, these shamanic journeys, you can go as deep as you need to go on a shamanic level.

 So, it's there for everyone. I'm really, really proud of it because it's honestly the culmination of many, many lifetimes of my work. And when I was watching the edited videos back, it really hit me. I was like, wow, it's taken a lot for me to get to this place where I can hold this kind of powerful, energetic container and deliver all of these different shamanic journeys. It's big and I'm really, really proud of it. And it can serve you in profound ways. I've seen it happen for thousands and thousands of people for many years. And now, it's available to anyone listening.

Luke Storey: [02:22:57] Awesome.

Alyson Charles: [02:22:57] Yeah, very exciting.

Luke Storey: [02:22:59] That's a really great breakdown.

Alyson Charles: [02:23:01] Thanks.

Luke Storey: [02:23:01] Yeah, I'm glad we recorded that. In terms of the timeline on that, at the time of this release, it will be April 21st, I believe, this drops and your registration would have opened yesterday on the 20th?

Alyson Charles: [02:23:14] Right. Yes. Yes.

Luke Storey: [02:23:15] And then, it's open for how long? Because I know people hear stuff like this, and they're like, cool, yeah, I'll do that next month, like this is unlimited.

Alyson Charles: [02:23:21] Yeah. Yeah. Especially, to get the intro rate, you got to get in within these first two weeks. So, yeah. Get in and get on it. I don't know that we want to close the door because like I said, this can be really of service in a big way for this pandemic time. But if you want to make it the most cost effective for you, you've got two weeks to do it, which at this point would be 13 days.

Luke Storey: [02:23:46] And we'll put the links and the promo code and stuff in the show notes. And if you're on the newsletter, you would already have that in your inbox with all of the clickable links and everything we talked about in today's episode, although I think we mostly talked about ourselves, and we're so self-indulgent.

Alyson Charles: [02:24:01] No, don't say that.

Luke Storey: [02:24:02] No, I'm just kidding. We're not. If anyone made it to the end of this, they don't think they that because they learned something. But in all seriousness, if you go to lukestorey.com/newsletter, you will get the newsletter for next week's episode and everyone after that with the complete show notes and clickable links and anything mentioned every episode. And that's also going to have a link in that newsletter for complete transcripts of every episode. So, every word spoken on this podcast from now on is written out. And you can get that by going to lukestorey.com/newsletter.

Alyson Charles: [02:24:35] Wow.

Luke Storey: [02:24:35] So, there, a bunch of family plugs in there. And with that, my darling angel, sweetheart, I just want to say I love you so much. You're such a stellar, stellar woman. You're an inspiration to me. And your kindness, and wisdom, and integrity, and honesty, and commitment to your own evolution, and growth, and everything about you is just fantastic to spend time with. And there is no one else I would rather share the end of Western civilization with.

Alyson Charles: [02:25:09] You can't top that. You could not have put that better. You know how much I love you. I mean, I'm grateful beyond words that the good Lord brought us together. It's truly a miracle. And, you know, you're the most inspiring person I've ever met. And for those that don't know your backstory, I hope that they can locate it somewhere and learn it because you have faced and traversed some of the darkest, scariest waters and come out just like such a shining, beautiful king.

 So, thank you for treating me so well. And my last words of wisdom are do not settle because so many times in my path, like after going through such a traumatic previous very long-term relationship and having so much PTSD and having to do so much deep work around that, I could have chosen, you know, to stay single and not that there's anything wrong for those people that choose that, but for me, I wanted to be in partnership. And all those years of being celibate, you know, there were opportunities where I could have dated or could have been with someone.

 And just that deep self-love that it comes back to just wouldn't let me settle. And I just thought, well, you know, I just prayed. And you just treat me so incredibly well and just honor me and you blow my mind every day. So, thank you for loving me the way that you do. It's so liberating and so empowering. And you want me to succeed. You don't try to hold me back and stop my light, like it's what I've always wanted. I wanted someone who would see my power and want it to grow. And you do that for me. And I cannot thank you enough.

Luke Storey: [02:26:49] Amen. 

Alyson Charles: [02:26:49] Amen. Aho.

Luke Storey: [02:26:51] So, there's a very special episode of the Life Stylist podcast. Thanks for joining us, folks. There'll be many more. We have plans, you guys. So, if you enjoyed this conversation and look forward to many more and some co-hosting and some fun things we have in mind, including, as I said, this Friday, our livestream where we're going to do some guided meditation and-

Alyson Charles: [02:27:09] Yeah, loving shamanic medicine, berthing your greatest life from the void. You're going to guide them meditational, and I'll take them on a shamanic journey.

Luke Storey: [02:27:15] Yeah, it's going to be rad. So, excited to work with you too because I did work with you, honey. All right, guys, we're out of here. Thanks for listening.

Alyson Charles: [02:27:22] Bye.

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