Luke Storey: [00:00:00] So now my experience sitting here is like, whoa, it's requiring a lot of faith that everything that's led up to this is still going to manifest as a kid for us. And I think on a deep level, I do trust that the timing and everything that's happened is leaning in that direction. But it's so interesting for me to go from my greatest fear being having a kid to probably my greatest fear now that we don't.

Alyson Charles: [00:00:34] My name is Alyson Charles Storey, and you're listening to the Life Stylist Podcast.

Luke Storey: [00:00:41] Hello, wife.

Alyson Charles: [00:00:43] Hi, husband.

Luke Storey: [00:00:45] Did we talk about on any podcasts when we got married last year?

Alyson Charles: [00:00:50] Oh, gosh. I don't know.

Luke Storey: [00:00:55] I just flashed back on that hilarious and beautiful moment with Elvis.

Alyson Charles: [00:01:04] Yeah. Elvis reincarnated.

Luke Storey: [00:01:06] At the Graceland Chapel.

Alyson Charles: [00:01:09] I mean, how could it not be one of the top three highlights of one's life to completely, 100% spontaneously feel called to get married on a two-day trip to Vegas that we were going for work? Just the orchestration of all of that and the hilarity and how it just ended up me feeling so perfect and so us. Just that divine river guidance that has been so pronounced and so clear ever since we shifted out of the friend zone, and also just how we have so much fun and every moment feels so special.  

And I also love the sacredness of the fact it was literally simply you and I. Elvis and the photographer as our witnesses. While I hope one day to have a wedding, probably here in the Austin area, that has all of our close friends, and soul fam, and bloodline fam there to witness us say vows to each other, I really, really love that no one was there but us.

Luke Storey: [00:02:26] I did too. It was fun. Whether it's been spoken or not, I think we have a family motto. If it's not fun, we're not doing it.

Alyson Charles: [00:02:40] Yeah. If it's not in divine alignment, we're not doing it.

Luke Storey: [00:02:42] Yeah. I don't know. Everything we do I think that is meaningful for our relationship tends to be spontaneous and just based on intuition, much more so than planning.

Alyson Charles: [00:02:55] And the whispers of spirit. I mean, that's totally what happened as the plane-- I mean, I'm very well-traveled, but that was my very first time ever going to Las Vegas. I'd been to Reno and other parts of the State, but yeah, I'll never forget is our plane was about to touch down, this, I almost called it a whisper, but it was actually louder and clearer than that. I remember the area in my head that that messaging, that download entered in. And I remember that message making me turn to you just effortlessly and organically and saying, we could get married while we're here.  

And that had never crossed my conscious mind until that moment and the way that it all came together. I love that you-- because then the plane was landing and we were gathering our belongings. And I love that there was no moment of conversation about it then. And I wasn't even sure if you heard me. And then later at dinner, you're like, sweetie, did you mean what you said earlier about getting married and how our friend Camilla, you had the intuition to reach out to her since she has Vegas roots. And then within less than 10 minutes, Graceland came through and had an opening.

Luke Storey: [00:04:17] It was booked. One text, 10 minutes later, you're on for tomorrow at 3:00 or 4:00 PM.

Alyson Charles: [00:04:23] No, I remember the 3:00. I was just going to say that because as you and Camilla were texting, you said, do you have a time preference? And I thought to myself, 3:00. That instantly appeared in my mind. But then I thought, uh, time doesn't really matter. It's always 3:00 somewhere in the world. Whatever opening they have. So I didn't audibly express it. And then you texted with Camilla, and then you said, okay, they've got 3:00 booked for us. I was like, that's the time that I wanted. So just from the small details to the overall big picture orchestration, it was all so clearly divine and fun.

Luke Storey: [00:05:03] Well, it's been interesting in our experience to see how so many of the big moments have been orchestrated. And that all we've really had to do is just be open to them. The first one being when I interviewed you for this podcast in 2017. And I'm sure some people listening have heard the story because it's one of my favorites, and I'm sure I've talked about it with you or other people. But we had that interview, which we're going to talk about a bit because we listened to-- at least I listened to most of it with you this morning. I still haven't heard the end. 

We listened to it once before, about a quarter way. Today it was about halfway. And then you walked downstairs, and I didn't hear the end of it. But our meeting that day and listening to that today, that was really our first date. I don't think I was aware. Well, I know I wasn't aware of it at the time. I didn't contextualize it as such. But that led to a friendship. And then, of course, eventually when I did ask you on a proper date, like a proper gentleman, we went on two dates, and then we went--

Luke Storey: [00:06:16] Two of my favorite things, Kundalini and pizza. Kundalini was our New Year's Eve first date. And my birthday being New Year's day, so at midnight, it was also my birthday. So that was a big first date. Not only is it the new Year, but birthday. And then, yeah, we went to that sweet little spot to have some good food.

Luke Storey: [00:06:36] Belcampo. No longer there. Shrouded in controversy.

Alyson Charles: [00:06:40] Shrouded.

Luke Storey: [00:06:41] And then shortly after that second date, you had gone back to New York, and I mentioned to you that I had been invited to a peyote ceremony, and you deduced that it was some friends of yours that were in fact hosting and facilitating that. And so you came out, and we went to that, and we were married. So on our third date, really in a ceremonial way, I think that the people facilitating and you saw some things that day about our bond and the possibility for our union that I couldn't see in the moment but was alerted to over the course of the weekend.

Alyson Charles: [00:07:22] But part of you part of you did know. And the same thing, there's just like, keep where you're at, but there's important points I don't want to lose track of. So yes. To answer one question, when you were like, I've never heard the end of 111 when I was on the Life Stylist, I listened to the end of it today, and it was funny. You said a lot of really nice things about me. In the intro, you were raving about what a profound experience you had sitting with me, and you were like, I know I've probably said this before, but this might be my favorite episode.

Luke Storey: [00:07:58] Really? Oh, I didn't hear that part.

Alyson Charles: [00:07:59] So that was in the intro. And then in the outro, I thought it was funny. I made note. You specifically said, again, how much you loved the episode because you had listened back. This was still when you were doing your own show notes, FYI.

Luke Storey: [00:08:15] Oh, wow.

Alyson Charles: [00:08:15] You were like, yeah, so when I listened back to do the show notes, he's like, yeah, she and I, we had a thing going on, and I just thought that that was hilarious. Unconscious foreshadowing of that phrase, we had a thing going on. Yeah, indeed we had a thing going on. Now we sit here married in our home.

Luke Storey: [00:08:33] Well, I mean, I had the awareness that I saw you as a female of interest for sure. But also, as you know, I had my own path that I was on at the time.

Alyson Charles: [00:08:47] Well, and I did too. We were both celibate. Yeah. And I think we've shared that.

Luke Storey: [00:08:50] Which didn't include any dating, or flirting, or even entertaining of those ideas. But I remember thinking like, oh damn. I'm like, bad timing. I met this incredible woman, but I have to stick to my guns here and do the inner work.

Alyson Charles: [00:09:04] Well, there were openings on a soul level that we were not meant to consciously be that aware of.

Luke Storey: [00:09:11] Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it was a really powerful experience for me because I think that was the beginning of starting to communicate more vulnerably on my podcast and on other podcasts, and just to be more revelatory, and open, and pushing the boundaries of how much detail I chose to go in about my personal experience and current day experiences. And you created such a safe and loving space in which I was able to do that.  

I mean, just your energy, and your fun, and the wisdom that you shared, that was impactful. But I think experientially, it was just, wow, I'm in the presence of a really magnetic, wise, beautiful woman. And I felt so safe, and so relaxed, and able to be myself, which was a new experience for me at the time. Back to the peyote ceremony. When that happened, yeah, obviously my intuition was guiding me to go with you, and that was even somewhat out of alignment with the confines I had created for myself so that I could evolve, and change, and become a better man in relationships.  

And I was bending my rules a bit to go on that weekend. So I walked into it with a knowing that it felt right, but also some conflict within that manifested as reservations because I'm not really supposed to be doing it like this. I had a very rigid and well-intentioned plan to go slow and-- 

Alyson Charles: [00:10:56] Well, in a lot of respects, we were going slow. When we were spiritually married on our third date in the teepee, we had barely kissed at that point. I mean, we had not come close at all to deeper intimacy. And I also want to add your intuition also came in the way that we came together to sit in these two back-to-back nights of sacred peyote medicine was me just checking in truly to-- because I just simply wanted to hold space for you.  

And I texted you and said, can you remind me when you'll be sitting with grandfather medicine? And your intuition said, why? Do you want to come? And that literally had not crossed my mind at all. And so right there was a beautiful opening opportunity for me because I just got back to New York. And again, that was going against some of the confines and constructs that I had been entrenched in of just being super regimented and, I don't know.  

And so that boggled my mind a little bit. I literally just touched down from being back across the country, and I'm going to book a ticket now. In a couple days from now, I'm going to pack again, and turn around again, and go right back out. And then I thought to myself, why not? I feel like I should. And so that's what I did. So I love when we are able to be honest about these more fine, intricate threads of how all of this came to be. It is so beautiful.

Luke Storey: [00:12:35] It is. There's much magic afoot. From that weekend on, I considered us married. And the experience in Vegas with the United States government's involvement in cosigning, it was meaningful to me, but I already considered you to be my wife and my forever person. I think maybe even more meaningful was when I asked you to marry me when we got engaged at Cuixmala in Mexico. Because when we were on the beach there and we were setting free the baby sea turtles at the sea turtle preserve--

Alyson Charles: [00:13:21] So tiny.

Luke Storey: [00:13:23] It's the cutest.

Alyson Charles: [00:13:24] Little flapper fins.

Luke Storey: [00:13:26] Oh, God. So special. But I had the ring in my palm, and then I put a baby turtle on it. And I mean, you know the story of that.

Alyson Charles: [00:13:33] This ring here.

Luke Storey: [00:13:35] Yeah, that ring there. And then I said, hey, let this one go. And you lifted it up, and there was the ring. And I, in the very formal sense, got on one bended knee and proposed to you, and I'm sure you remember this, but I was having a really deep experience when I proposed that question to you. I mean, my voice was shaking. It was very meaningful because-- and the words that came to me were not premeditated in any way. 

I mean, all I know about proposals is watching movies. I have no guidance or training on how that's supposed to go down. But I remember asking you to be my wife in this lifetime and beyond. And that was a serious commitment because spiritual vows, I believe are very real, and I take them very seriously. I can feel it in my body now just trembling like, okay.  

It was a moment of trust in myself that I was capable of withholding my part of that commitment, and that I was trustworthy in my own judgment and discernment that you were the person with whom I was meant to make that commitment. After the teepee, I felt married even more profoundly after the engagement. And then so I think that for me, one of the reasons that the Vegas marriage-- it was icing on a cake. That was the after party.

Alyson Charles: [00:15:19] Yeah. It was like the hilarious cherry on top.

Luke Storey: [00:15:21] Yeah. It was like, okay, cool. Let's go do the thing for real. And also there are, obviously, some legal reasons to be married if you're living in this country and things like that. So it was just a logical thing to do also. But I guess my inspiration in sharing some of these stories is the undercurrent of following God's will of aligning what I want with what the universe wants for me. And the universe wants the highest good for all. And I'm included in the highest good because I'm part of that. 

And so it's just following those calls. And that's something I've been learning to do for a long time, but it's something I've, I think, built much more refinement in living with you and seeing how you operate because you're really deeply skilled at feeling into yes's, and no's, and maybes. And it's been it's been so inspiring and educational for me to watch you move through your life, and also to see, as we've created this third entity of the relationship, how the relationship is guided by its own intuition, which is the combination of both of our insights. 

Just feeling into things and making decisions based on that rather than much of my past where decisions were based on fear, or selfishness, or confusion and not really being in tune with that inner guiding light. Living on self-will essentially was the majority of first half of my life.

Alyson Charles: [00:17:19] Yeah. We've had a lot of experience individually and now together of understanding what the essence of true divine surrender feels like. And yeah, through all sorts of different types and textures of decision-making. Some more challenging, some just so fluid and effortlessly in alignment. You obviously, through all that experience, start to be able to more clearly feel. Yeah.  

And the deeper that one goes within and learns what true trust in yourself feels like, I'm very grateful, and thank you for honoring me and my clear discernment. That's one thing that I do feel I have a really strong gift and mastery in, and I'm so grateful for it because it makes life a lot easier and more fun. That clear, pristine knowing is good. Very grateful for it.

Luke Storey: [00:18:27] Yeah. You have an accurate inner compass. Which way are we going? Which way do we want to go? What direction?

Alyson Charles: [00:18:36] Yeah. Something gets a little off kilter, I'm very clear and attuned to even with the slightest little. And then we're able to chat about it. And whatever tweak needs to be made, then we make it.

Luke Storey: [00:18:52] It's interesting being in relationship and living with someone who is also extremely sensitive. Both of us are just such sensitive creatures. And I used to really, within myself at least, look at that as a deficit because I just felt like I was just like a, I don't know, a bottle floating in the sea and just getting thrashed about. It's like just the external stimuli of life and all of the things that I experienced. I seem to have very little agency over how I felt and the experiences that came my way in life. And I'm slowly, I think much more so now than I ever have been, but slowly beginning to find the gifts in that sensitivity and that emotional sensitivity. 

Just being attuned and at times hypervigilant just about the energies of people, and spaces, and things that happen in life. And I think some of the positive aspects of that sensitivity is being a good communicator, which is essentially what I do for a living, is communicate. Developing empathy and compassion for other people. Being such a deep feeler, I feel that I really feel other people. And out of that feeling, comes a caring. I really care about people, even people that annoy me or people that I dislike. I still see their humanity.

Alyson Charles: [00:20:42] I was just going to say even with people's sometimes pretty extreme shadow aspects. Sometimes, not all the time, I hear you say like, oh, that's really sad. While I'm over there being like, we need to create distance and space because that person is currently not in a state that is safe to be around or whatever my observation is. So we do make a good team in that. But yeah, sometimes you'll be like, oh, that's so horrible. And I'm like, and--

Luke Storey: [00:21:14] Well, yeah. Also I think we're finding ways to balance our individual and collective boundaries. Because I was someone who was so ill and so dysfunctional throughout the first half of my life. The dysfunction, and sickness, and chaos is very familiar to me. And I also had the experience of redemption and coming out of that and becoming a totally different person. I mean, I'm a completely different person than I used to be. I've evolved a lot through a lot of grace and a lot of hard work. 

And so when I sense a distortion in someone, I think it's easy for me to hold the potential for them to awaken and evolve because I know how I used to be. There's an A, B example of before and after, and I'm generally, I think, a net positive to the world now. And before, I wasn't. And so that's a great quality to have because I can see the good in all people. But I think where we are strong is that sometimes that empathy, and compassion, and that sensitivity, and just diplomacy in my personality, the shadow side of that is naivete and gullibility.

Alyson Charles: [00:22:55] And sometimes leaky boundaries and not keeping our container--

Luke Storey: [00:22:59] Yeah. Allowing distortions to enter my field used to be it only had a negative impact on me. And then whatever price there was to pay for me being too open, only I had to pay it. But now, since it's you and I, we share a life, it's much different. Because if I allow distortions into my field, relationships, business, whatever, it not only affects me, but it affects you and affects the relationship itself.  

So I think we're great teachers for one another because I think helped you to arrive at more patience for people and just circumstances, just things in life that happen. I think I have an equanimity about me that helps you. And then you have the other side of the scale that's like, yeah, do no harm, kindness, compassion, love, but also take no shit. And the take no shit energy.

Alyson Charles: [00:23:57] Well, that's a huge part of it. I mean, without-- I came up with a quote that said something like compassion without accountability and responsibility is enabling.

Luke Storey: [00:24:10] Oh, yeah.

Alyson Charles: [00:24:11] You cannot skip over the accountability and responsibility pieces. And that's where my gift zeros in. And so, yeah. And I think it's great too in our time being together. The more you have trusted my gifts and made tweaks, and the more that I have felt your equanimity and maybe more gentleness around some of these aspects, the more we can attune to the place that the other person holds that allows you to hold a better container of a little bit stronger and clearer discernment. And it helps me to, maybe in some situations, soften a little bit more. So yeah, we have gently melded together into more of a harmonious one functioning unit instead of like, you're this way. I'm this way, Do you know what I mean?

Luke Storey: [00:25:15] Yeah, that's what I'm--

Alyson Charles: [00:25:17] Trying to say, or did say.

Luke Storey: [00:25:19] There's a balance that's created in that polarity. I think that's one of the main aspects of a relationship that's based on alignment, is that there's complementary qualities, characteristics, attributes that each person possesses in their own unique expression. And when those are blended, there's an integration of the whole. It's a balancing.  

And I think that's why I started just with the observation of us being two really sensitive people, and just coexisting together, and just watching the ebb and flow of our moods, and our experiences, and our desires, and our oppositions, and things that we like and don't like, and just how we roll throughout the day-to-day. I mean, you and I both live and work at home, and so we spend the vast majority of time together. And another thing that I--

Alyson Charles: [00:26:19] Well, real quick. And I want to be able to trust you more in the pristine cleanness of our energetic field. Because the more I can see your willingness and openness to get in there and work those pieces a little bit differently, that allows me to continue to soften and allows me to not feel like I have to hold the other side so sternly of the discernment. Do you know what I'm trying to say? 

By me seeing you being willing to be like, huh, gosh, wow. Her track record is 100 for 100 so far in terms of what I can see in people, and you trusting that more over time, that lets me not have to have such a strength with the harshness of my observations and boundaries. And I don't want to have to hold such a harshness.

Luke Storey: [00:27:26] It's a compounding trust. It's me building a track record of you seeing something and not dismissing it as, you're in a bad mood, or you're being too picky, or whatever, or nagging, or something like that. When you're like, hey, what's going on-- with the workers that come to the house and things like that, I think that's been one of the areas in which this has been most prominently displayed. I hire someone to do something at the house, and there's a distortion in the way they operate. There out of integrity. They do a shady job. They're not honest, whatever.  

And I'm just like, oh, we got to get it done, whatever. It'll be okay. It's brushing it under the rug, and you're like, no. Hey, this isn't working. And then I go, oh shit, she's right. And enough of those experiences transpire, and I start to build a trust like, oh, I'm actually just going to start going to her like, hey, what do you think about this situation, this deal, this person? Get your take on it. I build trust, and then that enables me to create whatever boundaries or circumstances are most conducive to that interaction, that deal, whatever's going on.  

And then the net effect of that is you've been able to soften, and now you trust like, okay, cool, he's going to hold it down, and you don't have to hold it down, and you can relax your nervous system and know that the sanctity of our relationship, and the sanctity of our home, and the sacredness of our family unit with me, you, and the dog, and the cat, that there's care being put forth that's going to make sure that everything is in harmony and balance, and that everyone's taken care of. It's really cool. It's really cool.  

Another thing that's interesting about our sensitivities is, I mean, this is-- I don't know, I might have mentioned this. I don't know if you've noticed that, but I have no idea on a day-to-day basis if I'm going to be in a really positive, uplifted, creative flow state mood. Some days I wake up and do my little morning routine, and I just feel really good, and on top of things, and not overwhelmed or stressed. And I feel creative, and happy, and light. And then I might do the same thing the next day, and I'm just like-- I mean, I'm always generally happy, but I have such a high benchmark for just how I want to feel every day.  

And sometimes, nature says, you might want to feel all of these ways, but today you feel like this. I don't know. I have anxiety, or I'm stressed out, or just feel a little gloomy for whatever reason. I find that on days when you're, I don't want to say struggling because it's not even that, but maybe a day where you're just like not fully vital, and light, and happy, on that day, I will be that way, and you won't, and vice versa. It's like there's even a balance there with the way our energies work in terms of our moods. And then sometimes, which is the greatest time, both of us are just on fire, and we feel amazing together.

Alyson Charles: [00:30:41] Well, that's most often the case. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:30:44] I just noticed that if one of us is off, the other one balances out. If I need support and love, you're there, and you have that to hold, and I have that to hold.

Alyson Charles: [00:30:54] Yeah. I just got flashed back to the knee stem cell situation where-- I mean, that's an extreme case. But yeah. Even in that situation where you had had your own procedures and then I had that unexpected flare which had a lot of teachings and medicine in it, you had to step up to the plate big time.

Luke Storey: [00:31:22] I mean, it was either that or check you into a hospital. I'm not doing that. You probably won't walk out. Have we talked about that stem cell thing on a podcast?

Alyson Charles: [00:31:31] No.

Luke Storey: [00:31:33] I mean, just so people aren't like, wait, what are you talking about? So we went to John Lieurance's clinic in Sarasota, Florida, the Advanced Rejuvenation Center, and I was doing all kinds of methylene blue IVs, and laser treatments, and all this stuff. And John, out of his kindness, offered to treat Alyson's knees. Her knees are pretty worn out from her career in running.

Alyson Charles: [00:31:52] And he took one look on the ultrasound and was just like, zoinks, what is going on here? The state of them were exactly what I would anticipate them to be having been highest level distance runner from two and a half years old through college. And yeah, so my knees were in rough shape.

Luke Storey: [00:32:13] So she did the stem cell procedure with endogenous stem cells. So they took stem cells out of her hip bone, out of her marrow.

Alyson Charles: [00:32:21] And it was wild. I had a whole shamanic. I was self-gassing. And so I'm face down on the table, and it's John and this other doctor, they're doing the extraction from my left lower back hip area. And yeah, it was wild. I could feel lineage things going on. It was this exact area that months leading up to even landing there, I had been feeling this very specific area in that left back hip, and I could feel it had something to do with ancestral or lineage something. And that was the precise point of the needle or whatever you call, that big giant thing they put in there. Not extraction. What do they call that? Aspiration.

Luke Storey: [00:33:10] Yeah. Aspiration, which is a big needle basically that they plunge into your hip, into the marrow, and then draw the marrow out, and then they run the marrow through a centrifuge and isolate the stem cells.

Alyson Charles: [00:33:22] But I started going on a whole shamanic journey.

Luke Storey: [00:33:26] Oh, the nitrous gas is a trip. Yeah. When I did my last procedure there, I did a ketamine troche and the nitrous. I was fucking tripping. And then afterward, we sat down and did a podcast episode, which I almost didn't put it out because I was so high. And then I took a bunch of CBG and whatever. It  was maybe not the best day to record, but I was having a great time, but I was definitely not in my right mind.

Alyson Charles: [00:33:57] Well, let me finish my story real quick. Then they get done with the aspiration, and they turn me over, and I just have tears rolling down my face. And they're like, how are you doing? I'm like, I'm great. I just went on a shamanic journey to heal my lineage, and they are just like, okay, Alyson. Very good. And we were having some fun in there with all of that.

Luke Storey: [00:34:20] Yeah. So she gets the treatment, which is injections, ultrasound-guided injections into her knees. So they use the ultrasound wand and a video monitor to see exactly where the needle is going and where the cartilage, and tendons, and whatnot need support. And for most people, they're a little sore that day, and then they just get on with their life and live their best. And Alyson had what's called a flare up, which is exceedingly rare according to John and his staff at the clinic.  

Her knees swell up, and she not only can't walk, can't even sit in a wheelchair to be wheeled around. Can't move. I mean, it was hard core. And I had my hip done with this VSEL therapy, a different type of stem cell therapy. So I'm limping around, and I probably should have rested the afternoon that I did mine, but it felt fine afterward. And so we went to the store and ran around a little bit, and I walked on it probably too much. So Alyson is laid up in bed.

Alyson Charles: [00:35:28] Well, they had to wheel me over to our little apartment we were staying at. And I could tell. I know my body. Again, I used to be the most intense elite level distance runner. That was my life, my career. I know how to endure. I know the farthest reaching capacities of how I can push my physical vessel. And I've passed six or seven kidney stones. I mean, I understand those realms. And I knew. Before I left that clinic and was getting wheeled over to our little apartment, I was like, okay, shit is getting beyond real.  

And as soon as they wheeled me in there, I did our method that we have where I really need you to, for sure, hear me. And I said, honey, I need you to come. Code red. I need you to come around, and I need you to look at me. And I looked at you, and I was just like, this pain that is coming on, it is horrifically intense. And I don't know what's about to happen because I could just feel that it was going somewhere that was going to be wild. And henceforth, the flares.

Luke Storey: [00:36:47] It was gnarly.

Alyson Charles: [00:36:48] Flares upon us.

Luke Storey: [00:36:48] One of the lessons with that for me, I'm so avoidant of pharmaceutical drugs because there are just so many natural solutions that frankly work better with fewer side effects, but when it comes to that type of pain, you got to take opiates.

Alyson Charles: [00:37:04] There was no other option.

Luke Storey: [00:37:06] Yeah. But the one of the things I learned was if there's a potential for that degree of pain, that it's really important to beat it to the punch and preemptively medicate because once that degree of pain sets in, it's really difficult to make it stop.

Alyson Charles: [00:37:24] To get ahead of it.

Luke Storey: [00:37:25] Yeah. And so that was the game we were playing. So anyway, I'm limping around. I don't want you to feel bad for convalescing and me being your caretaker, but I was in so much pain myself. I could barely walk either. We're just a couple of invalids. 

Alyson Charles: [00:37:42] It was wild.

Luke Storey: [00:37:43] But really there is no-- maybe we could have hired a private nurse. I don't know. It seemed to me the only options were check into a hospital. Not doing that. Or I take care of you. But anyway, there is a happy ending to this story.

Alyson Charles: [00:38:00] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:38:00] How do your knees feel since?

Alyson Charles: [00:38:02] Yeah, they're great. I mean, the suppleness and the cushiony feeling that I now experience within them, I never remember having this feeling because, again, I started so young with pounding the concrete, pounding the pavement and all that. And I've had a lateral release knee surgery on the left one. I was supposed to have that on the right. I've had leech therapy on my knees that we talked about it in your Episode 111. Yes, the journey ended up being worth it.  

And yeah, it was a bit of an anomaly of a situation. But I have one question for you that I've actually never asked. During that time where you were literally, I mean, I couldn't even move a millimeter of my own ankle or foot, and I needed help repositioning. I couldn't even make it to the bathroom. You're having to hold a bucket underneath me so I can go to the bathroom off the edge of the bed, and all of these things.  

Was there any, I don't know, healing or confronting thoughts that you had to navigate around like, I don't know, overcoming fears of having to caretake for me when we're older? I've never asked you that, but I'm just curious. Was there flashes of anything intense in those days? Because that was a week of needing to--

Luke Storey: [00:39:20] Yeah, it was quite a few days of that level of intensity with your pain. And it was really hard, I think mostly emotionally, just to feel helpless and just to see you suffering and just not being able to do anything except constantly run the SaunaSpace red light on your knee and put the--

Alyson Charles: [00:39:45] Yeah, you took such great care of me.

Luke Storey: [00:39:47] Salves on your knee. I was also frustrated because I felt like you could have taken more medication. And you're not someone that likes to take a lot of pills or--

Alyson Charles: [00:39:58] I was doing all the things.

Luke Storey: [00:40:00] Not to me, it was frustrating.

Alyson Charles: [00:40:03] I don't think I could have put anything else in my body. I couldn't have popped any pills.

Luke Storey: [00:40:07] Painkiller, suppositories, and all this stuff. But I'm someone who used to take copious amounts of drugs. I take copious amounts of supplements. I'm just like, take five fucking pills. What's wrong with you? And I think that's--

Alyson Charles: [00:40:23] Oh my God, I was taking CBD gummies. I was literally just popping.

Luke Storey: [00:40:28] Yeah, but not enough. You're asking for my experience. I'm telling you what it was. I'm sitting there in my mind just going-- you writhing in pain. I don't want to say complaining.

Alyson Charles: [00:40:38] But it got to the point where I was not-- I was sleeping. I was resting.

Luke Storey: [00:40:43] Eventually, yeah. But in the beginning, I knew you needed to get on the other side of the pain. I was sensitive.

Alyson Charles: [00:40:51] This is so funny.

Luke Storey: [00:40:52] I was sensitive. You asked for what? My honest experience. It was frustrating as hell because you wouldn't take enough medication.

Alyson Charles: [00:41:03] I was taking more than enough. I was scoped out, laying in the bed. I was doing what I'm doing now. I was incoherently laughing at times. I mean, I was so out of it.

Luke Storey: [00:41:16] Yeah. I think my threshold--

Alyson Charles: [00:41:18] Brandon's over there cry-laughing.

Luke Storey: [00:41:21] I think my threshold for intoxication is different. So if I was in that much pain, I'd be like, give me a morphine drip. I'm checking out. But more than anything, I really had to take it moment by moment because it was just so uncomfortable to witness you being that uncomfortable.

Alyson Charles: [00:41:41] Yeah, those flares were no joke.

Luke Storey: [00:41:41] I'm counting the moments, counting the hours, counting the days, just like there's no choice for me but to hang in there. You're not getting out of this Luke. You can't change this situation, so you just have to accept it incrementally, moment by moment, and just know that it's going to get better. And I was also--

Alyson Charles: [00:42:03] I had to trust that I was going to shift at some point too.

Luke Storey: [00:42:06] Dude, it was hard core.

Alyson Charles: [00:42:07] We were in it.

Luke Storey: [00:42:08] And then I also-- I mean, this wasn't that present, but there were times where I would be afraid, if this doesn't work after this, if her knees aren't better, and she went through this, and I encouraged you to have the procedure, and I was like, no, you really need this. Do this. It's going to be great. It's safe. I know about this stuff. If you, a month later, were like, yeah, my knees are just the same or worse, I would have felt so bad. That's why I ask you often how your knee is doing. And they feel better. I just want the satisfaction of knowing, okay, cool. They're much better than they were.

Alyson Charles: [00:42:46] And I always trust-- again, back to that discernment, I am potentially the most sovereign person I know. And I'm not saying that to be arrogant or from ego. I've worked my ass off to become an incredibly clear, incredibly adept, discerning, and incredibly divinely sovereign being. And again, I know how to make decisions. And so I always trust.

Luke Storey: [00:43:13] Yeah, well, I think in the years we've been together, I've never been able to convince you to do anything you don't want to do.

Alyson Charles: [00:43:21] No. Yeah. So let's make that really clear.

Luke Storey: [00:43:23] It's pointless. But that said, just being a participant in the encouragement, whether or not you made the decision in your sovereign soul or not--

Alyson Charles: [00:43:31] Yeah, I hear you.

Luke Storey: [00:43:32] I was just like, oh man, I hope this doesn't backfire. I hope that she gets the result because I would feel really bad whether you made the decision or I encouraged you or not. It's just like, dude, to go through this and then emerge a couple months later and be like, eh, same old shit, it would have been horrible.

Alyson Charles: [00:43:48] Well, that set off an interesting last couple few months of potentially the deepest and most potent initiations of my life. And I really feel that a large part, if not, dare say, 100%, of being put on that trajectory of all of these initiations has to do with our journey and starting our family, and, gosh, I'm trying to remember now. I only just started to share. We haven't talked about it on either of our podcasts. Oof. Oh, we're about to open a big doorway. Do we want to open it?

Luke Storey: [00:44:31] Drumroll, please.

Alyson Charles: [00:44:32] I mean, it's huge. And it's going--

Luke Storey: [00:44:34] Yeah. I sense that it will be helpful for some people listening. Yeah.

Alyson Charles: [00:44:40] Yeah. January 2022, a year and a few months ago at this point, is when we both got really clear that it was a yes to starting our own family. And we did get pregnant very quickly. I think within the first month or two, for sure. It happened, and then-- gosh, there's so much that's happened in the past year and four months to even open up this doorway. It's like, oh my gosh, there's a lot in here and this portal we're now entering into. But yeah, so nine weeks later, I did have a dissolving.  

I call it a dissolving because in some shamanic traditions, rather than labeling it or calling it a miscarriage, which does feel a little off energetically, some shamanic traditions refer to a miscarriage as a dissolving, which feels more aligned for me. When I say that that's what I'm talking about. And yeah, that was such a beautiful, powerful all the things. All the things. All the things time.  

For us to have-- I love being pregnant. And it was such a beautiful time to ride those experiences of the evolutions and the changes. And I was just starting to show. I'll never forget that. I think a couple of days before the dissolving started, I looked in the mirror, and I was like, oh, what's happening? And then my intuition, I started to feel-- remember that weekend where I was feeling really on edge and there was some other energy that was inside of me? 

And it was just saying to you, I know we're sorting out doula or midwife and just what the game plan is here, but I started to feel this adamant feeling of checking on things. And if we're going to check on things like, where do you want to go, and what feels good to you, and what feels good to me, but there was an urgency that happened that weekend. And then sure enough, Monday was the birthing, the passing of the embryonic sac.  

I've only just started to share about this, ironically, not on my podcast or yours until now. It just organically came up on someone else's. But these are all new public shares. I truly held zero shame or anything around it. It just was so sacred. I was just waiting, and you were waiting, for when we felt genuinely divinely compelled to talk about it publicly, and the time has just recently happened.

Luke Storey: [00:47:26] Yeah. It's a really interesting experience. I haven't thought about it in a while, but for the time that you were pregnant, it was, for me, very surreal. And it was just moving quickly, and it was exciting, and I felt so grateful that we were going to have that experience. I think in the period you were pregnant, the only thing I really hit up against at times was just, is this going to go down the way I want it to go down? 

And finding that balance of just trusting in terms of having a home birth and everything going smoothly, and not having harmful or dangerous medical interventions, and replicating birth trauma that I experienced and so many people experience, and all of that. So there's a little bit of contraction of just like, oh God, I hope everything goes well. And wanting to make sure you're taking the right supplements. Just that controlling part of me that you're a little familiar with.  

But that was in the background. I mean, I'm just sharing the comprehensive inner experience for me. But more than anything, just touching your stomach and praying with you and on you and just really revering the juiciness and the mother energy that was beginning to exude from you. And it was a very hopeful and exciting time.

Alyson Charles: [00:49:11] And we were able to go on the sail twin flame boat trip with our friends, and we were cruising around those sacred Mediterranean or Caribbean waters, going to the Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands. And yeah, it was really mystical and beautiful to have that.

Luke Storey: [00:49:28] Yeah. It was really nice. And we sensed at that time that it was going to be a girl. Of course, you never know. But we had a name picked out or have a name picked out.

Alyson Charles: [00:49:39] I don't want to share the name publicly.

Luke Storey: [00:49:41] No, that's okay.

Alyson Charles: [00:49:42] But we did have a name.

Luke Storey: [00:49:43] Yeah, we do, still. If we end up having a girl, I think that's still a fitting name. For me, I was excited and just in awe, just gobsmacked. Holy shit, this is happening. Because for me, in my own experience of wounding, and birth, and childhood trauma, and my own immaturity of the past, having a kid was never ever something I desired. Not even remotely. And it was one of my biggest fears. I just didn't want that experience. It was just too immature, and too self-centered, and just had too much baggage around it.

Alyson Charles: [00:50:37] I asked you about that on our very first date. I don't know if you remember.

Luke Storey: [00:50:40] No, I don't.

Alyson Charles: [00:50:42] Yeah. I mean, it's not a big whole story to get into, but I remember just having that curiosity, and when you were driving, I just remember we were in your car, and I was asking, I said, so what are your thoughts on kids? And yeah, it's been really beautiful for me to witness your evolution and your willingness.  

We have both, since the time that we started to date to where we are now, I mean, oh my gosh, we've both been all in in terms of the willingness to evolve and take whatever steps, measures, whether that be very earthly and physical-based or completely metaphysical and ceremonial-based, transmuting things,  having these spirit babies visiting us both separately and together, and both non ceremony and ceremony. When it comes to mind, body spirit, soul, metaphysic or physic, we have said yes to every task assigned to us.

Luke Storey: [00:51:43] Yeah. Back in LA, I had a really profound-- sometimes I don't like to talk about profound experiences because I feel like it somehow diminishes their magnitude. But yeah, I had one experience wherein this being or soul, this energy, came to me very clearly and asked my permission, I guess, would be the best way to describe it if it could come here and enter our lives. And I had to do a lot of work that night to even get to that point and identify some of the things that were blocking that experience, and did a lot of very, very deep, spooky, shadowy work to arrive at that experience.  

And then I remember coming home and sharing that with you, and saying, wow, I want to do this with you. And then also, again, made my plan. I am a masculine plan builder. I wanted to get us out of California, get to Texas, build this house, create a sacred space in which we could get pregnant and have a baby. And then we moved here. And what was supposed to take six months took a year and a half. I just felt like we need to wait until we get in our house and get settled. Everything's too chaotic and stressful.  

We're living in this little apartment, and I was just so overwhelmed by running this was a process of building this house, and also just having a career, and doing all the things. And then while we were living in that apartment, participated in another ceremony with a men's group with a bunch of my guy friends here and had no intention of exploring that particular topic.

Alyson Charles: [00:53:40] Well, in both, you went in with different intentions, and then the baby presented.

Luke Storey: [00:53:44] Yeah. Very much so. And in that one, everyone I know here, I think all my friends have kids. I can't think of one guy I hang around that doesn't have new babies, or grown ass kids, or whatever. So we're in there, and two men in there that were both fathers of a couple of kids each, both, individually and then together, it's almost like they ganged up on me. But they had a very clear message to deliver to me. Because I might have even asked them like, hey, I'm feeling into the dad thing. What's up anyway? The topic, and we're in deep medicine space where things are very ineffable.   

But let's just say a supernatural dimension of communication and access to knowledge and information that is not usually accessible in the normal waking state. And both of them, essentially the core of their message was like, you're using this house thing. They were very direct and very honest, and I was in a receptive and open place, and I trusted them and their input. 

But both of them, in their own way, said, you're procrastinating this experience. And you're using this house completion, and the moving, and this linear, stupid fucking plan. You're delaying because of your old fears, essentially, even though I had consciously said, yeah. Okay. I'm a yes for this situation. I'm a yes, but let's wait until all the ducks are-- and everything's just how I think it should be. And they just annihilated that.

Alyson Charles: [00:55:23] Yeah. You needed to embody the yes.

Luke Storey: [00:55:24] Yeah. And they annihilated that. And I was open and receptive to that because I believed that they were right. And I was able to humble myself and be teachable and receptive to that message. And both of them just looked squarely at me and said, the time is now. You're doing this now. And I was like, oh, now? Now. When you get home. And it was just one of those situations. There was no refuting it. There was no waking up the next day and go, wait, we were all tripping. This doesn't make any sense. I mean, I just had an inner knowing, and then I shared that with you, and I was like, it's time. And then we did.

Alyson Charles: [00:56:04] Yeah. And it's so beautiful too. One short point I want to make is from first date conversation and me inquiring, I don't remember verbatim, but it was along the lines of, it's not something that feels really vital or important to me. I'm just open. If I end up with a woman, and it's really important to her, it would be an honor to be able to provide that to her. It was definitely not anywhere close to a clear or enthusiastic yes. Let's just put it that way.  

And so that was intriguing for me because I had felt very clear. I remember when that yes for me clicked was back when I was living in New York City. And I mean, I remember the moment. It was a specific moment in time where everything in my being was like, yes to being a mom. And so it was so wonderful, mystical, powerful for me to witness the divine working through you all this time, where I never had to come to you as your partner, as your wife, and sit you down, or attempt to sit you down, and be like, we've got to talk about this and try to get you on board. 

I literally never one second had to do any of that because you were open and willing to let the divine orchestrate us in this, align us in this, and put in the work. It was just like the way the weaving happened without me needing to step in, intervene, try to control in any way, I was able to sit back, just be myself, hold my frequency, hold my yes, and just be witness to you arriving to your yes. It was wild.

Luke Storey: [00:57:59] The Lord works in mysterious ways, Alyson.

Alyson Charles: [00:58:03] Thank you Lord.

Luke Storey: [00:58:03] Yeah, well, that's the beauty, and mystery, and surprise of a surrendered life. The gifts are more than I could ever imagine myself. Just getting out of the way and being open and receptive. So it went from an entire lifetime of, that is the worst possible outcome I can imagine, to, I'm open to the possibility. Entering into partnership with you, going, wow. I'm much more open to that possibility because I could foresee that being something I want to share as an experience with you because you're so special, and what we have is so special.  

So it was a gradual opening, but there were those two separate evenings where it was just like, boom, hit me in the chest, and just like, oh shit, I'm destined to do this. This isn't like, that could be nice. Or do I prefer that or not prefer that? It's like, you are a father. Do it, is the message. So fast forward to, it happens, and there is, for the most part, just joy, and excitement, and curiosity about the experience. And some of those fears are just like, oh God, I hope this goes the way I think it should go.  

And then the really interesting part of it was it was so surprising to me because I  hear about this happening with women and their pregnancies, and I just never even entertained that as a possibility for us because it just felt so intentional, and everything just unfolded in such a miraculous way. It was just like, it's a no brainer. It's just a matter of, is the final event of the birth going to happen in the way that I hope it happens and according to my intentions for the best possible outcome? 

And then so when it was interrupted, it was really interesting because, how do I say this? And you're going to obviously share your own point of view because it's much more meaningful to you being your body and all. But it was, for me, I think, just, not even sad, just disappointed, and then afraid of like, oh, shit, is this going to happen for us? Because everything's been leading up to this, and all these doors are opening within myself of just like, this is a destined experience for me.  

And having those interactions with this being, it's so present. It's just here. And so it was like, wait, what is happening? What does this mean? Finding meaning in it. So that was part of it. And then, oh, man, just the potency of watching you in your process of that experience and just being in awe of your power and capacity to hold that as a woman. And also an appreciation for myself to be able to remain fiercely present with your experience.  

And not in any way try to manage or control it, but just to be a conscious observer and, at times, a participant in the dissolving process. And just to watch your badassery of not falling apart, and not dramatizing it, or enshrining the experience in victimhood, just your openness and receptivity to the totality of the experience of dissolving a pregnancy, and sitting in the bath with you, and just sitting there just observing you.

Alyson Charles: [01:02:36] With the placenta blood on my face.

Luke Storey: [01:02:39] It was fucking deep.

Alyson Charles: [01:02:43] Yeah, it was.

Luke Storey: [01:02:44] And it just gave me an even deeper level of honoring and respect for what you hold as a woman. And also I think part of what that was just the courage with which you met the reality of that situation. And there was no bypassing whatsoever, but there was also no catastrophizing. It was just, wow. I'm being with this. And there were feelings, I'm sure. And you can describe what your feelings were, but you're just like, cool. Bring on these feelings. Let's feel this experience completely. 

I think because of your ability to hold that, it's not a big deal for me. Subjectively, it was just like, I have my own disappointment, but as far as watching you, it's just like, oh, cool, this is part of life. This is part of the divine order of things. This is part of the plan. We don't understand it. Perhaps we never will. But to see the depth of your surrender helped me to also surrender into that, and trusting that there is a higher intelligence at play, and to go in the backyard and have our burial ceremony. I think the net effect of sharing that experience with you was just a deepening of our bond. It drew us even closer.

Alyson Charles: [01:04:32] For sure.

Luke Storey: [01:04:33] And then I'll wrap up and you can share whatever you'd like to share about it, but now that it's been some time, and then we took a pause and just allowed things to settle and then got active again to help bring it about. And thus far has not happened. And so now my experience sitting here is like, whoa, it's requiring a lot of faith that everything that's led up to this is still going to manifest as a kid for us. And I think on a deep level, I do trust that the timing and everything that's happened is leaning in that direction.  

But it's so interesting for me to go from my greatest fear being having a kid to probably my greatest fear now that we don't. I don't subscribe to the Western model of timing, and fertility, and how old people-- I just don't believe in that because I believe in miracles, because my whole life is a miracle. But I'm like, oh shit, we got to do something here. And then we have taken some proactive steps which I can share about in a bit, but anyway, that's my experience of it. 

It's a bowing to you and your relationship with your body, and your relationship with your emotions, and your trust, and spirit, and again, the depth of your surrender to the process. And it's been an incredible teaching for me due to the manner with which you've embodied the experience as a whole and just faced it head on and moved through it with great speed.

Alyson Charles: [01:06:23] Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that honoring. I think for both of us, the depths of that experience and being in that life-death portal-- I remember so vividly the day on that Monday when the embryotic sac birthed. I remembered feeling like I had never before been as connected to the miracle field. And there were just so many teachings. And also, note, I am about to share in pretty vivid detail my experience because that's what I feel called to do. So do with that information what you please for the listeners. 

But yeah, on that Monday, when I went to the bathroom, I looked down, and I knew. I just intuited. That was my very first pregnancy this lifetime, and also my very first dissolving. So it was a lot of new territory, feelings, explorations, all of that within this. But I just intuitively knew that what was in the bottom of the toilet was something that should be brought out of the toilet. And I remember I called you were up here. The sauna was being put upstairs, and I called you downstairs. And I just remember us in the bathroom, both standing over the toilet and just looking down and looking at each other.  

And I'm just like, I feel like we have to get this out. And then us getting it out and us both then standing, looking at it together, trying to understand what exactly are we looking at? And it was just so medicinal and wild. I remember quickly starting to understand that that was the embryonic sac for pretty specific reasons. Then us having the ceremony in our backyard. We had only moved in within that same month. We hadn't even been in this home for a full month yet, and we were already having this home birth and giving to our land.  

I mean, there's no more powerful way that you can have a land offering and a land ceremony than to provide an embryonic sac. And then four days later, a placenta to the land. It doesn't get any more powerful than that. And so, yeah, it was incredible, and it was powerful for me to witness myself in that experience too. It's such a testament to the way I choose to live life, and a testament to what the devotion to the shamanic way and the shamanic path can provide. I mean, all of that led me to being able to be so at one, so healthily at one with that pregnancy and dissolving experience. 

Because, like you said, I'm very clear, there was absolutely no bypassing it anyway. I felt the grief. I had the tears. I felt the disappointment. I felt all the things. And at the same time, like I said, I was so at one with the miracle field, and I was so clearly in communication with the spirit of our child. She was telling me why the dissolving was happening. And it made crystal clear sense. She came in for a very clear, specific mission, and she was telling me that.  

And so, yeah, in the midst of all of it, there was never a more powerful, earthly, and cosmic dance experience than this. It was all happening at once. And I was healthily with it all at once. And I'm so glad you brought in that I wasn't like catastrophizing or overdramatizing. Because I was talking to the spirit of our child, and I was talking to great Spirit, and I was also talking to my own soul. And so I had these awarenesses. So yeah, there was no need for me to make it something other than what it was.

Luke Storey: [01:10:36] You didn't attach meaning to it and create stories around it. It was like, I mean, in the experience that we shared together, the physical part of it, it was meditative. It was etheric. It was deeply present. It was spiritual. Emotions were a subtext of the depth of the experience.

Alyson Charles: [01:11:07] Yeah. And then four days later, on that Thursday, when the contractions were stronger than ever, I remember being so confused by that. And then Devonna, our friend, being the messenger to remind me the placenta. And I thought, oh. Again, remember, this is my first pregnancy and dissolving. And so I hadn't even thought of-- because I was just so confused as to why the contractions were so much stronger four days after I had already birthed the-- 

Luke Storey: [01:11:37] Yeah, neither of us are anatomically educated. I've interviewed a number of experts on this, but a, I'm a man, and b, it's the first time for me too. So we're both going, what's going on here?

Alyson Charles: [01:11:51] Yeah. The contractions were so strong, and she said, you're probably birthing the placenta. And the second she said that, complete resonance knew that to be true. And then you and I were able to privately have-- yeah, you ran the bath for me because that was the only thing that was soothing those contractions was being in our big, beautiful Japanese soaking tub and soaking in there. And you got that prepared for me. And then we were able to take a bath together. 

And that, honestly-- I mean, it might sound so weird, potentially, to some listeners, and I'm sure not weird at all to other listeners, but it was one of my fondest memories, you and I, in that tub, and just all of the giant clots and parts of the placenta that were starting to birth out. And you and I sharing in those sacred waters, literally and figuratively, in the bath together while this is happening. Sharing in those sacred waters. We had created life together, and then we were sitting in the dissolving together. Oof. I feel that so powerfully in my heart as I'm saying that. And yeah, to just be witness to one another in that experience. Ooh, God, I feel so strong.

Luke Storey: [01:13:11] It was like time stopped--

Alyson Charles: [01:13:15] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:13:16] For a while. That's what I mean. It was just trippy. I'm just looking at you going, this chic is next level, man. Ancient warrior. Holy shit. And also just gave me so much. Not that I lacked confidence, but birth is a big deal, and it's potentially risky, and it's difficult often for the mother and the baby. And it's just such an unknown and miraculous part of the human experience. But to watch you, I just remember thinking, oh, she's got this. 

Whatever the birth ends up being, I knew that you could handle it, and that you were so well-equipped for being a mother. Not just giving birth, but you got the mom thing down. It is innate, and it is present, and you were just fiercely present and open to everything that that experience had to offer. And it was, yeah, just the bond between us. Later, in a similar way, your knee experience.

Alyson Charles: [01:14:42] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:14:43] Neither one of us are going anywhere. I don't mean leaving the relationship. I mean we're not leaving the presence. When the going gets tough, we're even closer. We're there for one another. We're a team. We're in this together. It's not like I'm over here, like, oh, gee, this sucks. She's having a hard time.

Alyson Charles: [01:15:00] Hopefully she can figure that out.

Luke Storey: [01:15:02] Yeah, we're in it together. And like I said before, also just not only honoring you, but really honoring myself like, holy shit, Luke, you're here for this? Damn. Good job.

Alyson Charles: [01:15:14] Well, I have a--

Luke Storey: [01:15:15] Because that's not who I used to be. Maybe I was, and I just didn't know it.

Alyson Charles: [01:15:24] Yeah, you always had it in you, honey. That's a perfect segue to a point that I had written down when I was listening to 111 of the Life Stylist that I was a guest on this morning. You specifically were saying-- we were both sharing about areas in life that we were currently working on and where you were at. And in that December, 2017, episode, you were saying that you were working on being able to have healthy relationships with women and really devoting to that. I even timestamped it. Around one hour and 17, you said you were tilling the soil because you were crystal clear in what you knew you wanted in a partner, what you knew you wanted in a woman.  

And you said, damn, I need to bring it if I want to be able to hold the space and that environment. And by that environment, you were referring to the environment of having your sacred partner, of having the divine feminine by having the woman, your wife. Yes, I do believe it was always in you. But just in 2017, you were saying these quotes. You were just at the tilling soil part and had only the awareness of, damn, I need to bring it if I want to be able to hold that space. And just look how far you have come to where you so impeccably hold space at all times for me.  

I'm someone that-- I am incredibly powerful, and I am incredibly sensitive, and I am incredibly authentic, and vulnerable, and multi-dimensional, and multifaceted. And there's never been any of those areas at any given time, even spontaneously, when I pulled into these, and I'm having these completely unexpected spontaneous initiations and all the things that my way of life brings. You have held that space impeccably at all times. So in less than six years, you have arrived.

Luke Storey: [01:17:50] Yeah. Well, I think that's something that many of us go through in our desire for union is holding up this ideal for the type of partner we seek, yet we're not able within ourselves to demonstrate, and meet, and match that which we seek. And I think at that time, I had this vision. I actually had it all written down, as you know. I was like, okay, I know what I don't want because that's what I've been attracting and manifesting based on my own decisions, and I know exactly what I want down to the minute detail, from the most superficial to the most meaningful attributes of any woman I could imagine.  

And then somehow, I got the download that if that's what I seek, I need to really ask myself, is that what I'm able to offer? I have to be able to show up and be a vibrational match for the type of person with whom I want to form a long-term partnership. And so that's what I said about to do. And hot damn.

Alyson Charles: [01:19:14] Here we are. Here we sit.

Luke Storey: [01:19:16] Hot Damn. I did it. And we did it. And here we are.

Alyson Charles: [01:19:19] But to close up some of these really sacred shares around our family creation, co-creation time journey we've been on, on that Thursday, then birthed the full placenta in the tub. And that was so beautiful to see it birth out and swim around in the waters in the tub. And for me to intuit to put that blood all over my face, there was something very, ritualistic is not the right word. Ceremonial, kind of.

Luke Storey: [01:19:59] Primal.

Alyson Charles: [01:19:59] Primal. Yeah. It just was this knowing of, this needs to be here. And to have that all over my face and to be looking at you. And you're standing there. You had just exited out of the tub, right before the placenta fully birthed, and you're standing there looking at me when this happened. And I'll never forget the look on your face, and just the feeling I had it. And then us to-- I remember putting it on the palm of my hand and bringing it out of the tub. And then we were able to, along with the embryonic sac, put the placenta in the same area of our land.  

I also just want to make note so I don't forget because I appreciate and love both of our communities so much. You guys have been amazing. But I do just want to honor myself, and you, and our experience, and us sharing in this most sacred, vulnerable way. Neither one of us is-- we don't need any advice.   

And I understand that those urges come from a place of love and just wanting to connect, or share, but again, I ask that you just respect and honor my sovereignty, our sovereignty as a sacred union, and what our family-- we're very clear on exactly where we're at, the tasks at hand. So yes, just please respect our space and boundary. We don't need messages, and emails, and DMs offering up-- we don't need any advice.

Luke Storey: [01:21:35] Yeah. My motivation in sharing this is to deepen our experience in our relationship, first. And also, as I said when you asked the prompt, do you want to go there or do you want to talk about this, it's an act of service to the people listening that might have gone through something like this and are trying to contextualize it, or people that are going to go through it. They might have some useful tools that we've experienced. But yeah, this is not, for me either, a cry for help or advice. I feel very clear. And I know, like you said, people, they hear something--

Alyson Charles: [01:22:16] Especially with the pregnancy piece, people want to offer up advice more in that category than any other category.

Luke Storey: [01:22:22] Yeah. Maybe it's an ancient tribal instinct to want to support your fellow mothers in the tribe and things like that. But yeah, just sharing your experience and asking for support and advice are two different things. Thank you for clarifying that.

Alyson Charles: [01:22:39] Yeah. But all of this opened up because my point-- and people are probably still hanging on that stem cell connect. They're like, wait, how did they-- because I said these initiations, the last three months began with that. And I'm very clear that a huge part of it is the power and magnitude of these spirit babies, who have very clearly revealed themselves to us, and that we are in regular communication and connection with ushering us into these deepest places of healing and experience. Again, whether that be on a mind, body, spirit, soul level. And that has been the steady through line now going on a year and--

Luke Storey: [01:23:27] They're making sure we pass boot camp before we move on to the next level.

Alyson Charles: [01:23:31] Deepest levels. Yeah. And I don't know, honestly, we've probably been going for a long time now, so I don't think I-- and this episode, some of you are wanting me to share more details of a recent near-death experience I had had. I just don't know if I have that in me or if we even have the time for me to get into the details of that in this episode. Maybe that's for our next one. But I guess my point is that I just want to honor our spirit baby or babies who have been so clearly guiding us to all of these truly deepest healing, initiatory, potent waters and places. 

I guess I'll just speak for myself at this point. Within myself. And yeah, the last 2 to 3 months have been the deepest, and I'm arriving to the other end of that portal. I can feel it. It has been wild. It has been a lot. It has been very intense. I've needed to take really conscious intentional breaks to fully integrate, to take pauses and breaks from people, even people that I love being around. And they get it. They do this work too. And so they know where I'm at. They're like, oh, you're-- I'm allowing the new to continue to assimilate with me and present because I'm in a very different place. 

And what's interesting is I'm going to tie this back into Episode 111 on your show now because this will intentionally be-- we're going to both air it on your Life Stylist podcast and on my Ceremony Circle podcast. And intentionally, this will be Episode 111 for my Ceremony Circle. And I found it really intriguing because when we were talking in your 111 and sharing about what you're currently working on and what I'm currently working on, a lot of what I was working on then is the new that's opening up and presenting for me now. So I found some really intriguing dots connecting.  

I even explained how the energetics of where I was at then would make this like ka ka ka ka ka ka ka feeling and sound in my energy field. And that's that thread, that little strange, mysterious-- what is this little thread of anxiety that seems to be so pervasive no matter what work I do? And I even made that sound in that episode. And in these deepest healing waters and initiations of the last few months, there's been a full releasing with honor. And then of that frenetic anxiety thread that was just trying to persist and hang on for different reasons in the last couple of weeks, I was able to have a new energetic field present that was completely free and clear of everything.  

Not just that ka ka ka ka, that freneticness, anxiety feeling, but of everything. So I've just continued to give myself the space and grace to continue to attune to such an open field. I even remember saying to this one energy therapist that witnessed when this space opened up, it was so freeing and liberating. I started to chuckle when =the field opened like that. And I said to him, is it even safe to have a space like this? Because it was just so open and free. Yeah, it's been really powerful for me. It was really cathartic.  

I knew there was something because, you know me, I never listened to any podcast, not mine, not yours, nobody's, but something told me this morning to go back and listen to 111, and it's showing me. And the theme that we talked about in that one was the importance of reflecting on progress made. You were saying that. You were like, I feel like I don't do that enough because you're on this evolutionary journey and make all these strides, but you weren't sure that you took the proper time to pause and reflect on the progress, and the irony that now we can sit right now in this episode in real-time and reflect on the progress by listening to 111 in your show, and the 111 that's coming out in my show in this episode, it totally shows. 

We weren't even together, and we didn't even know that we would be dating then. And now we're together, and married, and talking about this family-starting journey. Talk about being able to take a sacred pause of reflecting on progress. We are now the living embodied proof of that. And that's pretty wild and trippy.

Luke Storey: [01:28:27] That's cool.

Alyson Charles: [01:28:28] That's super cool.

Luke Storey: [01:28:29] Yeah. That's a really important teaching too is if we're on a path of growth and self-realization, there's always a pile of coal in front of us to shovel, and it's really easy to forget to turn around and look at the mountains of coal that have already been shoveled. I'm better at that. I think that the slippery slope of that is where the credit is due for the changes and for the evolution. Because the ego can also come in and say, well, look what I've accomplished. Look to where I've arrived, and all this. There's a bragging energy.

Alyson Charles: [01:29:25] It can be that.

Luke Storey: [01:29:26] So I find it safer and safer to acknowledge all of the work that's been done and what's been accomplished by being honest with myself. And when I'm expressing that, if I happen to be expressing it, that it's taken a lot of hard work, and dedication, and courage, and all the things, and heaps of grace. It's a collaboration between the divine and myself, where I set the spiritual intention.  

Okay, this is where I want to go. These are the things I want to move through, and heal, and the ways in which I want to evolve. I set that intention, and then it requires the exertion of my will, and my actions, and my thoughts, and my feelings to manifest those changes. But none of it's going to happen, in my experience, for me, without God's help.

Alyson Charles: [01:30:16] Without the grace of God. Yes.

Luke Storey: [01:30:17] I think that's the sweet spot I'm finding, where like, yeah, I can own what has been accomplished, but I don't take sole credit for it. And then I'm impervious to the ego sneaking in and trying to give me a superiority complex or any weird distortions like that.

Alyson Charles: [01:30:36] Well, it's funny you bring that up because the other thing that you were working on in the old 111 episode in 2017 was imposter syndrome. So it's just interesting because I feel like that ties in there. And also I thought it was so cute that at that time, in 2017, you were like, yeah, it's been pretty cool. There seems to be good receptivity to what I'm doing here with my podcast. And it was still your second job at the time. This wasn't even your--

Luke Storey: [01:31:11] I'd been going for a year at that point.

Alyson Charles: [01:31:14] Yeah. And it was just funny to hear you talk about it, how it was then and now, just how many millions of downloads in you are at now, 12 million or whatever. And just everywhere we go, people are like, I listen to your podcast. It saved my life. Or are you Luke Storey? All this stuff, and back then, you were still doing your own show notes, and you had another primary job?

Luke Storey: [01:31:39] Yeah. My life was supported by School of Style, that business that I just sold very recently.

Alyson Charles: [01:31:48] Yeah. And again, in your own way, that pregnancy and birthing journey, and now you're in the postpartum, with that officially being, can you talk-- I don't know if you can--

Luke Storey: [01:32:00] Yeah. It's done deal.

Alyson Charles: [01:32:01] Done deal. Okay.

Luke Storey: [01:32:02] It's legally out of my hands.

Alyson Charles: [01:32:06] Yeah. That was a whole journey.

Luke Storey: [01:32:08] Yeah. God, it's interesting. Even though I haven't been actively involved in that business for the past couple of years, it's interesting how unfinished business and open loops can really use up space on the hard drive. It's like an open program. You have too many open programs. It's just this thing that's not come to its conclusion. Yeah. So it feels really good. And also just a sense of accomplishment that I started a business in 2008, and it is still viable in 2023 to the point that somebody wanted to take it over and run with it.  

It feels really good that the legacy of that business will live on. And I'll be able to check in on it in the years to come, be like, oh, that was my baby. It left and went to college, and now it's an adult doing its thing. It's a living, breathing business. But yeah, that was funny. I heard that part this morning too, where I'm like, that's crazy. I started this thing, and I don't know if anyone's going to listen to it. I guess a few people like it.

Alyson Charles: [01:33:17] People seem to like it.

Luke Storey: [01:33:18] It's served a lot of people, which feels really good.

Alyson Charles: [01:33:21] Do you want to--

Luke Storey: [01:33:23] I want to continue with the pregnancy thing a little bit because there's something that I think could be helpful to some people. So as I said, we took a break after that.

Alyson Charles: [01:33:35] Heal.

Luke Storey: [01:33:35] Yeah, just give it a pause, regroup, and let your body rest and recalibrate. We've both continued to take supplements and eat foods that are supportive of that, and we're making sure that you have as stress-free life as possible and can just be in your own creative process with your podcast and not be grinding like you used to do as a popular speaker in New York City and writing your book and putting your book out. You've accomplished so much in your life. So we're setting the table, and I feel like everything is fertile, and the environment in our home and in our lives.

Alyson Charles: [01:34:15] And my womb is so juicy.

Luke Storey: [01:34:17] It's ready.

Alyson Charles: [01:34:19] Juiced up.

Luke Storey: [01:34:19] So the fact that it hasn't happened yet has become a bit of a curiosity because it happened so easily and quickly the first time, and it's like we weren't-- I don't like following cycle. Just do the thing, and it happens. But anyway, I don't know if it was you mentioned it or I did. Whatever.

Alyson Charles: [01:34:37] I did.

Luke Storey: [01:34:37] You did. You're like, hey, honey, maybe take a sperm test just to find out, or whatever. And it's funny because, literally, that never crossed my mind because I feel so vital. I'm 52, but it's like-- I mean, I've made a career partly out of just learning about ways to take care of myself. And I have energy and great sleep. And I feel I physically look pretty young for my age and whatnot. So I thought, well, it wouldn't hurt. It's not kicking in again, so we might as well find out.  

So you guys, I went on, and I have no affiliation with this company. I don't even know how I found it. It's called Fellow. I think it's fellow.com. And so you send them a sample of your sperm, and they send you back the results of your test. And I'm literally just going through the motions like, I'll do this just so we know and just so Alyson feels informed, or whatever. And I get the test back, and my dudes and my doodads, it comes in this report that's got these infographics, and it looks like a credit report where there's a circle.

Alyson Charles: [01:35:44] Yeah. That's brutal.

Luke Storey: [01:35:46] And there's a spectrum from green on one end to red on the other end. And then it says very poor, poor, okay, blah, blah, blah. I get this shit back, and it's like poor, and I'm in the red.

Alyson Charles: [01:35:59] All the way in the red.

Luke Storey: [01:36:00] Yeah. The needle is buried in the red. And I'm going, there's got to be a mistake. Did they mix up my sample with an 80-year old? What is happening here? I mean, just the care with which I live my life, and my avoidance of EMFs, and all the things. So I'm like, okay, that's good information. No wonder. And also the motility. There's other things I didn't even know. I mean, I knew what sperm count is because males around the planet have historically low sperm counts now. And there's a number of reasons for that. But that was low. The motility was low. It's like chances of fertility, low.  

You got an F. So then, of course, I immediately go online and start researching what kills sperm count. And there were a number of things that weren't relevant to me. One of the things that I stumbled upon was taking hot tubs. And I'm like, I don't really take hot tubs. And then I read further, and it was like, and saunas. And I'm just sitting there going, you have got to be effing kidding me. I've been taking saunas since I was a kid, literally. And in the past few years, especially after we got in our house, I set up the-- 

Alyson Charles: [01:37:10] We have two beautiful ones.

Luke Storey: [01:37:11] Two saunas. I mean, talk about enjoying saunas. I have to because they both have different features I enjoy. The one that I probably use the most is the one by myself that I jump in in the morning when we do a sauna together. We use the sunlight and sauna, right down the hallway here. But I hop in the SaunaSpace, and it's the one with the red lights. And red light is known to-- when your male genitalia is exposed to red light, it's scientifically proven that it increases your testosterone.  

So I'm sitting in that sauna a few times a week with the red light right on me, thinking I'm making myself more fertile, going out into the sun, laying naked in the backyard, getting lots of sun, because that improves your hormonal balance and testosterone. So I find this out, and I'm like, out of all the experts I've interviewed about sauna therapy, I consider myself to be very knowledgeable about the benefits of sauna therapy. In fact, this week, yesterday an episode came out all about sauna therapy, and I'm like, how did I miss this piece?  

But I probably missed it because I never wanted to have kids. And if I learned earlier in life that that was one of the side effects of saunas, I would have taken more of them because I didn't want to have kids. So I immediately stopped taking saunas. I've taken a couple with the assistance of an ice pack strategically placed, but still, I'm just avoiding that. And so I researched further and found that taking exogenous testosterone or testosterone replacement therapy is also horrible for your sperm.

Alyson Charles: [01:38:48] Yeah, double whammy.

Luke Storey: [01:38:50] And I started a very low dose protocol on that, a couple, I don't know, three months ago, four months ago, something like that, with no clue. I mentioned that to Fionn, our landscaper, the other day, and I was like, yeah, bro, my sperm. I said, yeah, it's saunas and testosterone. He's like, oh, you're taking testosterone? He goes, oh, yeah, it's male birth control. I was like,  how did no one mention this to me? So needless to say, I've stopped all of that, and I'm taking all kinds of African herbs and different things. 

Spermidine, that great company. Pyrimidine makes a spermidine product that in clinical studies, has shown to improve sperm motility and the number of sperms. So I'm on the healing journey, and I'm fully confident that based on all the other health interventions that I employ on a regular basis, that I will get them back up to my 20 something levels again. But yeah, that was a real bummer. I'm just grateful that I followed your cue there, got that test, and then educated myself.  

So I share that only for the benefit of anyone listening. If you are a couple or you're a man that is in the process of wanting to conceive, really important bits of information to be aware of because you might even be a younger, virile guy. And if you take a lot of saunas, basically your testicles don't like to be heated up because that inhibits their ability to produce sperm. And so, yeah, it's one of those things it's like the good news and the bad news. But I'm happy that we found out.

Alyson Charles: [01:40:28] Right. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:40:29] I'm going to take a test in a month or so again after I've got a two-month break. And obviously, we're going to actively keep  ourselves on the journey of conception and all that. But it's just like, oh my God. I just never thought. It was like, can't be me. You know what I mean?

Alyson Charles: [01:40:44] Well, yeah, that's why--

Luke Storey: [01:40:45] It was very humbling.

Alyson Charles: [01:40:47] Thank you for being willing to honestly share that because I know initially when those results popped up on the computer screen, I know it was a bit confronting, and confusing, and it was sensitive for just a hot minute there because it was just so unexpected. So yeah, I appreciate your willingness to do it. And it is intriguing, to the point you're just making. I always hate to generalize things. And on the pregnancy journey, the finger, nine times out of 10, always points to the woman. And it's like, I don't know how and when that system got in place.  

I'm not pointing a finger and trying to blame anyone for making that happen, but it's just like that seems to be the case if there's a couple who it's taken a while to conceive or anything along those lines. I feel like even within the marriage, and certainly, outside of it, community, friends, family, I feel like nine times out of 10, the eyes and fingers point toward, well, what's going on with her? Or what different measures should she take?  So I'm just glad because I feel like this brings liberating, healing medicine to that whole old patterning. And I'm glad that you were willing. 

I remember getting that intuitive hit. And like you said, the journey continues. I tune into my womb and my body. I feel super juicy and super ready, and that intuitive curiosity pinged in of, his sperm. I just remember having that awareness and being sensitive when I brought that up because I know how I've been sensitive at times when you're like, Alyson, are you still taking this supplement? And I'm just like, oh my gosh, get off my nuts. No pun intended. But yeah. So thank God you didn't get all weird.

Luke Storey: [01:42:47] Hey, there are those who know, and there are those that don't know. Aren't you glad you know? It's good information. But yeah, it was funny too. Initially, it was a little bit of an affront to my masculinity in a way. It's like, I don't know, you're impotent. It's like, what, I can't reproduce? It's a weird feeling initially, because even if I wasn't on the journey of getting pregnant, I think I would prefer to know that I could if I wanted to. 

It's just the animal male body awareness of just going like, oh, there's something wrong with me. It's like a feeling of being weak, or not up to par, or incapable, or something like that. I really enjoy feeling very capable of everything and anything that I endeavor to accomplish. So it's very deflating. Yeah, it's a weak sauce feeling there.

Alyson Charles: [01:43:39] But just short. You were able to manage that.

Luke Storey: [01:43:41] It was a few minutes. No. It wasn't a thing that I went through for weeks or something. It's just like, oh, what the hell?

Alyson Charles: [01:43:47] But when you came to me, you did get emotional too. So you had a couple of moments. But yeah, you managed it very well.

Luke Storey: [01:43:52] Yeah, it was just like, oh man. And it frightened me too because I'm just like, oh man, we can't delay this. I feel this sense of urgency around it. So it was just like, God, every month counts, in my mind. But yeah, it'll be fun to habituate myself as I have to help that along and retest. And I'm quite confident that we'll be able to bring it back, and have our baby, and do the damn thing.

Alyson Charles: [01:44:21] And God got us as well. We're fully with it.

Luke Storey: [01:44:25] Oh my God. This is deep. You guys listening, Alyson had a few notes, and thank God, but we had a powwow before we started. And we're like, what do you want to talk about? I don't know. What do you want to talk about? And I said, well, I don't know. You just lead it. And she's like, I don't want to do that.

Alyson Charles: [01:44:42] Well, I know I didn't have a problem leading. I just didn't want to have to carry the whole show.

Luke Storey: [01:44:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alyson Charles: [01:44:47] But I could steer the ship.

Luke Storey: [01:44:48] So we didn't really have a set curriculum today but--

Alyson Charles: [01:44:53] Well, we'll make note for another time. We can talk about our tantric retreat with Dawn.

Luke Storey: [01:44:59] Oh, yeah.

Alyson Charles: [01:44:59] She is so amazing. We had such an incredible time. And I'm still feeling those energetics that got opened in that tantric retreat weekend with Dawn Cartwright. She's just such a, in my opinion, masterful teacher. And I had a lot of beautiful openings in a lot of different ways. And I still feel them. There's a different energetic current that ever since that time presents itself when I'm in a certain location, that's just-- I haven't been able to nail down my finger on what is happening around me that then opens up that energetic current that you've watched, like when we were in Costa Rica. 

I don't want to label it as like full body orgasm, but it's of that essence. But it will just arise when I'm on mystical land, or if I'm at a very powerful geographical location in the world. And that type, and texture, and movement of energetic, I have noticed, happens since our tantric retreat weekend. So a lot of beautiful teachings there. We can dive into that another time. The other cool thing I was hoping we'd have time for but didn't, in relational dynamics, how there is obviously an opportunity for growth and for certain lessons and things that need to come to the surface.  

And when that happens, how it's possible to be in that dance and in that evolutionary process, but with grace, with self-regulation, with healthy emotional restraint, and not having either person be on offense and defense, and how key that is. I feel like whether it's friends or sacred union, it's such an important thing. So we're going to have to dive into that more.

Luke Storey: [01:47:06] Yeah, I think next time we sit down, maybe we'll map it out a little more and hit some specific points around just relationship tools and things like that, because I feel like we do a pretty damn good job.

Alyson Charles: [01:47:25] Incredibly good. In fact, it's something--

Luke Storey: [01:47:27] We've never had a fight, and we've been together for a few years.

Alyson Charles: [01:47:30] And we have had disagreements, but we hold them in what I just described. And that's what makes them not turn into fights. 

Luke Storey: [01:47:40] Yeah. People have had feelings, but no one's name-called, slammed the door. I did shut the person out. You know what I'm saying? Back and forth.

Alyson Charles: [01:47:52] I have thrown a couch cushion. Not at you, but I did throw a couch cushion.

Luke Storey: [01:47:57] You did throw a couch cushion. You felt so bad too, and embarrassed.

Alyson Charles: [01:48:01] I collapsed in a shame pile in our bedroom closet.

Luke Storey: [01:48:05] I was like, babe, you just felt some feelings. It's okay.

Alyson Charles: [01:48:08] Yeah, I felt horrible.

Luke Storey: [01:48:10] Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of value to share there, and just the management of one's own inner experience. But I think-- now I'll start going into it. I don't want to go too deep, but it's a really interesting dance of autonomy, where you have your inner experience of who you are and all the feels, all your thoughts, all your beliefs, everything that makes you you. I have that. I alluded to it earlier.  

But then there's a third energy, a third entity that is the relationship, the container of the relationship wherein our individual autonomous expressions of ourselves interact. And so I'm responsible for my feelings, thoughts and behavior. You're responsible for your feelings, thoughts, and behavior. And then in the dance of the relationship is where those mix. And I think for me, that's so interesting and ever expanding, and also just makes living together and doing our life together so much easier and just more peaceful.

Alyson Charles: [01:49:30] Well, because we have--

Luke Storey: [01:49:31] You're not responsible for my feelings. I'm not responsible for your feelings.

Alyson Charles: [01:49:34] We both have such an astute and profound self-awareness, conscious awareness of self that we're not going to allow ourselves to get pulled and swept into  the other person's stuff either. There's so much that we're watching. 

Luke Storey: [01:49:57] It's like the time that you had your outburst and threw the couch cushion. And there was one other time where you needed to express to me that you needed to be heard, and you didn't feel like I was hearing you, and so you're  yelling, but it's still not a fight. You're just fucking pissed.

Alyson Charles: [01:50:13] Expressing.

Luke Storey: [01:50:14] Yeah. But in both those situations, my nervous system, of course, is bracing a little bit because there's some intensity in the room that is unexpected, but it didn't make me angry or want to retaliate. That's why it's not a fight, because I'm not reacting to that like, whoa, I got to be right.

Alyson Charles: [01:50:33] That's the not offense defense thing where you're always saying we're on the same team.

Luke Storey: [01:50:38] Yeah. It's just, wow, this is interesting. This is a little intense.

Alyson Charles: [01:50:42] And because you're not reacting and you're able to regulate and hold, then there's nowhere for me on an unconscious or conscious level to try to latch into that creates a hook. There's nothing to hook.

Luke Storey: [01:51:00] Exactly. Because I know it's not about me. It's about your feelings.

Alyson Charles: [01:51:03] But here's the thing.

Luke Storey: [01:51:04] You're having some feelings, and I might be a character playing a role in the experience of you having those feelings, but they're your feelings.

Alyson Charles: [01:51:12] Correct. And that is such a masterful way that now it's like-- and I'm so now used to us being like that that it has exponentially raised the bar now for all of my relationships, whether that's family, friends, work. All of my relationships.  

And I am so accustomed now to this very, very-- in my humble opinion, it's an incredibly high level way, a very masterful way of communicating, of relating, of disagreeing that, oh my gosh, when something different than that occurs, I'm like, whoa. It's set the bar very differently for all my relations now because I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what it needs to be and should be, ideally, in all of my relating. And so when I notice the absence of that high level way, it's very noticeable and jarring.

Luke Storey: [01:52:29] Yeah. It's very empowering to have built a strong presence in the witness observer where it's like-- I mean, we were driving in the car yesterday, and you got a text that you found annoying. And we're out having fun, everything's fun, and then your mood shifted a little bit, and you were like, ah, what the fuck? It wasn't about me at all. But I was like, we were having fun. I'm like, do the fun thing. You know what I'm saying? You had a moment where some emotions came up, and the highest service I could provide for myself, and this was not a big deal at all. I'm just giving the most recent example that pops in my mind. But it is an example of this practice. 

The highest service I can be to myself in that moment, or to you in that moment is for me to observe the minor discomfort I'm feeling because I'm now holding space for you to express some feelings about something not related to me. If I wasn't aware the moment those sensations appeared in my body and I was unconscious and asleep to them, that would likely manifest as me being annoyed with you and wanting you to be different than you are in that moment, and not being able to resist the temptation of expressing my discontent and my desire for you to be different and wanting to, not wanting to, but unconsciously negating your feelings and your experience and having no space for your feelings because I'm overwhelmed by my sensations and my feelings.  

So just a few deep breaths. Just going, hmm. Noticing as I'm driving, I feel a little uncomfortable in my body because my beloved is having a minor yet different experience than she was 20 minutes ago. A little breathing, a little presence, letting you know I understand, creating space for you to share, not trying to change you, not giving you unsolicited feedback or advice, just listening, being present. Keep myself chill.

Alyson Charles: [01:54:43] Yeah. The unsolicited advice is super annoying.

Luke Storey: [01:54:47] Yeah. Any men listening--

Alyson Charles: [01:54:49] Anybody.

Luke Storey: [01:54:51] I'm just going to say to the boys out there, to the fellas, if a woman is having a strong emotional experience and hasn't asked you for your advice or to fix their problem, I will give you some unsolicited advice, you listener--

Alyson Charles: [01:55:06] Yeah, that's hilarious.

Luke Storey: [01:55:07] Yeah, it's a paradox there. Don't try to fix the problem.

Alyson Charles: [01:55:11] We're going to give unsolicited advice on not giving unsolicited advice,

Luke Storey: [01:55:15] Just giving you guys a gift. You will only make things worse. Sometimes with you, it's like you have to ask me two or three times, like, okay, I'm done. What do you think?

Alyson Charles: [01:55:25] Fucking tell me.

Luke Storey: [01:55:26] And I make sure you're ready because I don't want to interfere in your process.

Alyson Charles: [01:55:30] But I'm also an incredibly efficient self-regulator, and get back on track.

Luke Storey: [01:55:36] You are.

Alyson Charles: [01:55:36] So let's button up the story with that.

Luke Storey: [01:55:38] Exactly. I'm just letting you know my practice. And a few minutes go by, you process your frustration with the situation, which was minor but still annoying. I mean, I would have been annoyed too. It was like, what? This is stupid. And then a few minutes go by, and you just express your feelings. You vocalize a little and tell me how dumb this thing is. And then we were just having a great time again like nothing happened. But that could have gone much differently and could have escalated.

Alyson Charles: [01:56:07] No, it would have.

Luke Storey: [01:56:08] And could have been a really shitty-- 

Alyson Charles: [01:56:10] If you had looked at me and been like, calm down. I've been like, calm down? This is super wack because of A, B, C, D. It would have just riled my fire up more.

Luke Storey: [01:56:20] So having agency over one's experience, being witness to one's sensations, and emotions, and thoughts, it's like, it's not about not saying the wrong thing and escalating it. It's about having the awareness of the first sensation you have in your body that's slightly uncomfortable that is going to eventually evolve into saying the wrong thing that's coming from a reactionary place, a defensive place, an offensive place, or a place of absent mindedness and a lack of presence. It's all about fierce presence and regulating the nervous system. It's a beautiful way to live.

Alyson Charles: [01:57:01] I have to watch for my emotional charge fire levels. If I'm feeling heightened emotions of whatever kind, that is my main first cue that I need to breathe, walk into a bit of a different room to down charge, to downgrade the fire a couple of notches at least. That's taken me quite a long time to be able to actually execute. I've evolved a lot with it. But yeah, the emotional fire level is a big watch point for me. So anyway, I have to urinate at this point. Can we wrap her up?

Luke Storey: [01:57:48] It'd be best if you didn't do it on that lovely white chair.

Alyson Charles: [01:57:50] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:57:51] All right, my darling. I love you so much. Thank you for your presence in my life. Thank you for being the incredible human being that you are. The awesome, magnificent feminine woman who lives in her power and silliness. And you're just so interesting to me, and I just adore you. You're just always entertaining and just fascinating to me. You're just a fascinating being.

Alyson Charles: [01:58:27] I love that I am that for you. And thank you for just the way you love me. I can't imagine there being another human walking planet earth that would be able to be with me, and celebrate me, and hold space for me, and be patient with me, and just love me the way that you do. I'm so grateful for it every day.

Luke Storey: [01:58:51] I am too. I'm a lucky guy. I still can't believe in 2017, when we met, you were single and intentionally off the market. I can't believe you lasted out there on the streets of New York, on the open market between 2017 and whatever it was we got together. Dates always elude me, but I'm like, how did you not get snatched up?

Alyson Charles: [01:59:15] We were meant to be.

Luke Storey: [01:59:16] Yeah. I'm so grateful that the stars aligned and that we finally recognized what many other people saw in that first meeting. Like, wow, you guys have a vibe. I'm glad we caught on. So let's go live happily ever after.

Alyson Charles: [01:59:33] Yes. Thank you for voyaging with us, everyone.

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