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In intimate partner relationships, we can often believe that change needs to happen in the other person in order for us to be happy. Rohini Ross, and her husband Angus, work with couples and individuals to help them see that our experience of everyone in our lives is coming not from them, but from within us.

You can find Rohini Ross at TheRewilders.org.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Show Notes

• Discovering spiritual psychology after several career starts
• Burning out as a therapist while still becoming licensed
• On stress coming from our patterns of throught
• Resolving the internal pressure to be worthy of love and acceptance
• How the Principles are ‘time release learning’
• Whatever we are looking for is within us
• On not taking a partner’s anger personally
• Dealing with an autism spectrum diagnosis in a child

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• George Pransky’s book The Relationship Handbook

Transcript of Interview with Rohini Ross

Alexandra: Rohini Ross, welcome to Unbroken.

Rohini: Thank you so much for having me lovely to speak with you.

Alexandra: Lovely to see you again too. 

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came across the Three Principles.

Rohini: Oh, my goodness, where would you like me to start?

I originally got a master’s in cultural geography. And that was a switch in my major, I was going to school to be a doctor. And when I got to the pre med classes, second year of them, the science classes, I had a bit of a meltdown. I wasn’t able to do them. And so the dean at that time, because my first year, I got straight A’s. And so it was kind of shocking for me, I’d never struggled academically before. And there was a lot of other things going on as well that were challenging. 

When I went to the dean, he says, Well, it seems like you’re capable, but maybe you just need to switch to something you enjoy more. That sounds like a good idea. And so I switched to cultural geography, which I’m really grateful for, because it’s very closely aligned with anthropology. And it gave me more global context for understanding things. And it was very inter disciplinary. And so it gave me a lot of freedom. 

Then, when I was finishing my master’s, I realized that I missed the intention of being in a healing profession. So as much as I enjoyed the academics going on and doing a PhD was appealing. But there was something deeper within me that wanted to continue to look at healing, even if I wasn’t a medical doctor. And so I stopped my studies at that point. 

I had just decided to move back to England. I was born in England, but raised in Canada. And my father left when I was two and a half. And we hadn’t been reconnected. I knew that he was or I thought he was in England. And so when I was doing my research in Guatemala, for my master’s, I met a woman who lived in London, she ran a Guatemalan Textile Museum in London. And she said, you can come and work in the museum, and I’ll trade. I have a flat that you can stay in. And I thought, well, that sounds like a great idea. And so that was all set up. 

Then I met Angus. He was flying in and out literally, from Toronto, where I was living at the time. And we met, and it was one of those recognitions in that time. And so there was some real motivation for me. So when I went to England, I just decided to focus on finding my dad, and then just giving myself some space to really explore what is it that I want to do.

I was looking at Chinese medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy, and I didn’t really think about psychology. But as I was, as things unfolded, the museum didn’t work out. Well, the textiles had a lot of chemicals in them. I’m very sensitive to chemicals. And so I’m like, I can’t work in this environment, because I’m getting headaches, and I’m feeling well, and the trade with living in the basement flat with a woman wasn’t feeling so great, either. And so I said to Angus, I don’t know what to do, I don’t think I can do this job anymore. But I don’t have another job. 

He was a photographer at the time, let me just introduce you to modeling agency and see if they have any work they can help you out with in the meantime. And I was 24, turning 25 at the time, which is very old to start a modeling career. Most people start when they’re 15. And but for whatever reason, I was fortunate in that they had work and I ended up doing that for about 10 years, till we had our first child. And that allowed me to really have the space to just explore what I wanted to explore. 

And then part of the reason we came to the US was through that work. When I got here to Los Angeles, there was a school, it’s no longer in place, but at the University of Santa Monica, they no longer offer master’s programs. The university is still there, but they don’t offer degree programs anymore. But they had a counseling psychology program, but the foundation was in spiritual psychology.

As soon as I saw it, I’m like, that’s it. That’s what I want to do. 

I went to the open evening. And I just knew, it’s one of those things where like, Okay, I’m signing up for this program. And then I’m like, Oh, my goodness, what’s happened. Sure, check this out with somebody So I talked to Angus about and he’s like, Well, if you think it’s right, like he was absolutely fine with it. But it was just one of those moments where the inner directive was so clear. I was shocked by that level of clarity. And so I did that program. I did end up finishing the Counseling Psychology program, I did it over a long period of time, because we had our two children within that period of time. And so it was an extended study program. 

Then I ended up becoming faculty at the University, which is really fun. I became a licensed psychotherapist through that program. And then, probably, shortly after I get licensed, because what happens is you start working as a therapist a long time before you actually get your license, because you have to get 3000 hours before you can actually write your licensing exam. And so by the time I got licensed, I was starting to feel burnt out. 

And I’m like, oh, no, because that was the one thing he said, if we’re going to invest in this, you better do it. I said, I would, but maybe I can’t. I started to look at what else can I do at the time I was working with a fabulous company, it was it was I just loved the company. And we worked with families that had adolescents or young adults that were really struggling. What was beautiful about the work that we did is we worked with the entire family system. 

There would be a clinician that would work with parents, there’d be a clinician that would work with the young person. And they would work in a way where they would go out, they would do activities, they really focused on rapport relationship building, there was a strong Buddhist spiritual orientation within the company. It felt quite aligned on many levels. 

But I think as a new therapist, and also some of the policies of how we had things set up at the time, there was a lot of emergency situations, a lot of on call, like, we were pretty much available 24/7 to the families to support them, because there was some really high risk situations going on. And, and I think that I was also as a fairly new clinician, it was difficult for me to understand how to navigate all of that.

Often with new clinicians, you get thrown in the deep end, and have to sink or swim. I started to think, well, I can’t do this job. 

And then what happened is that the company leadership, invested money in a way that was not wise. And they basically lost it in a project. And so they decided to leave the company. And they thought that we would just go bankrupt when they left the company. We had about 100 families that were working with the time several teams working with them. And there were three of us. Clinicians, one of them, one was one of the original founders and two other clinicians. We were like, what do we do with these people? Like we can’t just say sorry, she’s closing our doors. 

We decided to take over the leadership of this company. And so for me, I thought, well, maybe that is going to be a change. But then taking on the leadership of a company, this was not very easy either. So then I’m doing more of supervision. But also I took on the operations and also the public speaking, which was like the PR for the company to try and really build business because I was the one that was kind of like, Tag you’re it. It brought up so much anxiety inside of me because I was very insecure and very self conscious. My inner critic would just go crazy. I would be nervous. 

Before doing a talk I would be nervous. During the talk I would be dissociated, and then afterwards where you would hope there would be some reprieve from that. It was just self judgment, self criticism, shame. It was awful. So I got into this really negative spiral with that. I’m like, can I even do this? 

So I started looking at what else can I do? And that’s where I came across Michael Neill’s Super Coach Academy at the time in 2011, which was not a Three Principles training. But I met George and Linda one of the weekends there. 

I should mention, I had read The Relationship Handbook, George’s book, back in probably 2004, recommended to me by Steve Chandler, my coach at the time. Angus and I were on the outs at that point; we were briefly separated, we didn’t think we were going to be able to make it in our relationship. And it’s not like oh, I read the book and then it worked out but we both read the book at that time and we were both able to come back together and work things out. So I would say it was very instrumental in supporting in that in that process. 

But I didn’t understand that there was a deeper spiritual understanding behind it. I’m sure I was impacted by that. It didn’t, I think, really say anything about it in the early edition of the book. Now it does. And so I didn’t know to look like Oh, there’s more. There’s a Sydney Banks.

I grew up, I’d spent my teenage years on Vancouver Island, and I never knew there was a Sydney Banks on Saltspring when I was 30 minutes away.

Meeting George and Linda, at Michael’s training, I understood that oh, there’s something much deeper. And in that first weekend with them, I was I was deeply impacted.

As I was saying, I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at that time. I think also, at that weekend, specifically, we had Angus and I had put an offer on our home, like we’ve never owned a home before we put in an offer. And innocently, I thought, Oh, you put an offer in on a home, it gets accepted, you get the home. But what we didn’t know is that there’s all these little things that can go along the way where this doesn’t meet the criteria for the mortgage. And so because where we live, it’s a very kind of unique setup, there were all kinds of quirky things that the bank was really not happy with. It was unusual for them. It wasn’t just cookie cutter. 

Every week there was something new, like, can we get this approved by the bank can we get and so I was just in this massive state of overwhelm, because I was taking it so personally, I couldn’t help it. I knew on an intellectual level that my worth is not dependent on buying a home, that if the bank says no, you can’t have this home, or where you can have the money, that it would be fine. It’s not like we weren’t okay. 

But it was really, on some level touching this, this place inside of me a feeling completely unworthy, and not good enough. I talked to George on one of the breaks about this situation, and he was talking to me, and I could really get from him that it wasn’t a big deal, not out of a lack of compassion. But for him, it really was not a big deal when I was going through. And he said something like, oh, just you know, you’re stuck on one channel of the TV. I’m paraphrasing, I’m sure he said it much more eloquently. But something along the lines of you’re stuck on one channel of the TV. Don’t worry, the channel is going to shift, it will shift naturally, you don’t need to worry about it. 

And I’m like, but I’m not sleeping. I’ve never not slept and I’m waking up with anxiety, which channels by itself. So it was a real interesting paradox, because I wasn’t understanding what was being said to me. But after that weekend, I felt so much better. Like on a physiological level on an emotional level, I was impacted in a really beautiful way. And in spiritual circles, they would talk about that as transmission, there’s a transmission that comes from the teacher. And so I mean, that’s how I can explain it. Because in a sense, there’s no intellectual understanding. But there was a transmission that I received, that deeply impacted me. 

Again, it was one of the moments just like with the University of Santa Monica, this is the direction I’m going. We had other teachers, different weekends coming but I want to know more about this. And so that’s what had me look into their apprenticeship program. And I ended up doing that program with the Pranskys. And it changed my life. It changed my life in so many ways. 

One of the most beautiful ways is that the job that I thought I could no longer do, all of a sudden, I realized that the stress wasn’t coming from my job.

And all of a sudden, I realized, oh, I have this pattern of thinking, these patterns of thought that I identify with, and that’s where the stress comes from. 

It wasn’t like that was a new concept to me, I understood that my feelings were related to my thoughts. That was something that I had learned for quite some time, but I had interpreted as that means I then need to change my thoughts. And there’s something wrong with me for having these thoughts. So it was very antithetical to what the Three Principles understanding points to and so it was a real misunderstanding on my part, and what the biggest shift happened to me when I saw that there was nothing wrong with me for having the thinking that I had, or for even identifying with the thinking that I was having. So it wasn’t really not identifying with the thought. 

So of course that shifted once I realized But it was not a problem with the thoughts, it was not a problem with identifying with the thoughts. The problem was me making it mean something about me that that was what was going on. And that changed everything because it took the pressure off of me. 

I had lived my life under such internal pressure to live up to standards that I made up to improve myself to be better. I’m not saying there’s none of that there. But it has significantly, significantly decreased. And without that same level of internal pressure. Another way you could talk about that there’s just naturally a self-acceptance and a self… It’s not even a self love. It’s the connection with the love. That is who we are, with the depth of feeling of oh, oh, that’s what I’ve been looking for. 

I’ve been looking for it through perfectionism. I’ve been looking for it through workaholism, I’ve been working at trying to get there and all of these ways because I was suffering based on that misunderstanding, of feeling unworthy and shameful, not good enough. And yet, as soon as that illusion falls away, this is what I met with an experience of being filled up. There was a very big experience of that, in terms of the shift was quite dramatic. And then I think what unfolded is just an integration of that into day to day life. And then it continued deepening. 

I think I’ve heard Bill Pettit talk about the principles as a time release learning. I’ve got that time release capsule that continues to release over time. And so that changed my whole practice. 

I went from thinking I couldn’t do my job and needed to change and become a coach to actually falling back in love with being a therapist.

I was quite busy at the time. When I look back at what I was doing at the time, no wonder I was a little anxious. I was on faculty at the University of Santa Monica, I was on a leadership team for the company that was working with families. And I asked to go to three quarters times, so that I could also have my own practice outside of that. So I was seeing people in my practice, and also the lead clinician of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center in Malibu. But it was, again, I didn’t need to change those things, those things did change. I didn’t keep that pace up. 

They didn’t change first, I changed first. 

And then my life started to shift in the organic way that it did, but I had it set up that oh, I need to fix something out there so that I have less stress and anxiety in my life. And then all of a sudden, I have this greater sense of spaciousness, because I’m not putting that same pressure on myself and I have exactly the same lineup of things to do. And yet, I’m feeling okay. And I’m actually enjoying what I’m doing. I’m not feeling burnt out as a therapist anymore. I’m actually feeling inspired. 

At that point, when I was doing the apprenticeship, I was learning about working with corporations, and like, wow, I can even work with companies doing this, this is amazing. And so over that period of time, it became clear to me that I was going to leave many of these jobs and go out on my own and create my own practice. And the thing that was a little tricky was that I was so certain about that. And because I was so certain about that, I thought it should happen right away, like, Okay, I know, this is what needs to happen. I guess I need to leave. I even gave in my notice to the company that I was working with. And it just they just didn’t accept it. I accepted, except it was like, Okay, I guess that’s not happening now.

And then about 18 months later, we did a great job of getting it back on its feet, we got the company ready to be sold, it was being sold. And my eldest daughter went to high school, and she started struggling. I realized with her needing more of me, I needed to let some things go and it was literally again one of those decisions where I just knew Okay, I need to get my notice and let that go. And this time I did it and not only did they accept it, it was so much better for the company because that meant my salary was not needed to be included in the sale. So it just made everything work so much more smoothly and everybody was happy. 

It was a big lesson in the organic unfolding and that my time, my ideas of timing are not always what’s meant to be. But it’s again, that inner peace, recognizing for myself that what I was looking for was always inside. And that as I respected that more connected with it more deeply, things naturally started to evolve in my life. So my work life changed. 

My relationship with Angus, at that point, we weren’t on the brink of divorce as we were in 2004. But I had resigned myself to okay, this is good enough, right? This is good enough, I don’t want to leave him I don’t want to be with someone else. But I guess this is what our relationship is going to be.

And then all of a sudden, there’s this reignition in our relationship of love, desire of connection. 

Of course, he saw the shift in me. And as he will say, I dragged him to many a workshop and many a therapy session saying you need to do this, or else you know, it’s not going to work. But just seeing that shift in me got him curious about what is it that you’re actually doing because I hadn’t talked about it. I knew that I turned him off of so many things. I’m like, I don’t need to bring him into this. This can be just for me. And he can do whatever he wants. 

He saw how I was living life and said what is this? He got curious and wanted to learn more. So then he ended up doing the apprenticeship with the Pranskys and so forth. And as you know, we now work together. 

My practice evolved from then going into more of my own private practice doing some more corporate work. And then really getting inspired and offering the soul centered series. I can’t remember exactly when that was, but a few years back before the pandemic, and letting go of a lot of my private practice to look at more training programs. And then the Rewilders community, and training program came out of that. And then the couple’s intensives Angus, and I focus a lot on couples intensives, and I’m doing more and more, one on one intensives, too. So it’s just been this natural evolution that’s happened with my business. 

Alexandra: I love that. So much juicy stuff in there. You anticipated my question about how Angus got folded into the whole thing. 

That’s really cool that he saw something happening with you, without you having to bring it to him.

Rohini: His internal curiosity. It was not me, saying I don’t even think I talk because it’s so hard to talk about as well with someone. I just didn’t really need to talk about it.

Alexandra: Maybe talk about that a little, a little bit more your relationship with Angus. And maybe your children too, and how things have changed with this understanding?

Rohini: With Angus, because of my sensitivity, through my conditioning to anger, I had a lot of judgment. Because Angus is somebody who wears his heart on his sleeve, you know where he’s at. And if he’s mad, he might say something. Whereas I’m much more internal. And it’s not like either one really is right or wrong, but we’re just very different. 

I had a lot of judgment on him over the years, about his expression of anger, because I took it very personally. What would happen is, there would be times where he’d get overwhelmed, and then the overwhelm would come out with an expression of anger. I really believe that he needed to change in order for me to be happier. It was a very arrogant position. I was it was very blind to my arrogance. I just thought it was so crazy to say now and it’s like it was I was right. 

I didn’t see my own judgment criticism as a problem. Really, you’re the one with a gigantic change. It wasn’t even it’s not like he had tons of anger. There were times especially when there was a low mood or extra stress, it might not be great. So anyway, when I came back from one of the intensives with the Pranskys and had a really profound, dropping into a deeper space of well being within myself, really, probably the most profound of my life up to that that point where I just knew, without a question of a doubt that I was okay. I just felt the expansion of that. 

So I come home, and I’d been gone for a week. Can’t remember exactly how old the kids were at that point. But 10 or 12, maybe 14. Anyway, in that age, so he’s got the kids for a week by himself. I come home, all blissed out. He’s not a happy camper. And it’s not like he was intentionally mad, I don’t even know, I can’t remember what the situation was. But my mood was up here, his mood was not fabulous. And when couples get together, when moods are like that, there can be a clash that happens. 

He was angry about something, maybe completely legitimate, I can’t even remember what it was. But he expressed his anger. And for the first time, I think, ever, in our relationship, he acted in that way. And it didn’t hurt. I didn’t even realize that the hurt was coming from inside of me until that point, really, because it just really felt true that he behaves this way and I hurt, therefore the hurt is coming from that behavior must be. 

I have this experience where it’s like nothing fazed me. I still felt love for him, I felt compassion for him. And so whatever he said, I’m still looking through the eyes of compassion, I’m still in a really beautiful feeling within myself. And so I don’t respond in the way that I would normally respond, which might be to return with anger, or to cry or get out. I don’t respond in that way. And then he says something else, which is we talk about it now. He’s like, it was definitely way across the line. Again, we don’t remember what it was. But it was something that was probably meant to really bait me. And I still didn’t respond. Because again, it wasn’t like I was doing anything, I genuinely was not feeling hurt. 

I wasn’t responding from hurt. I was responding with compassion and empathy. And then he looked at me and it wasn’t computing to him. And then he said, Are you not going to respond, or you’re not going to say anything? I could see his suffering. 

Again, it’s not the words, because that could be seen as kind of an arrogant, condescending expression. And that wasn’t coming from that place. I genuinely could see, oh, it’s not personal. I didn’t say all this, but looking back I see, I wasn’t taking it personally, I could really see that he wasn’t himself in that moment. It was a temporary outburst of frustration that what he was happening was nothing to do with me, it wasn’t my fault. And the storm would pass. I knew it would it was not who he is. 

I didn’t need to get worked up about it. But when I said that, I can see your suffering. He said, You know, for him, maybe the first time in our relationship, when he’s in that state of suffering, he felt compassion for me. I don’t think I’d ever been compassionate with him. And he was angry. Because I would always take it personally. And so I wasn’t able to feel compassion, because I was taking it personally. And so when I said that, and again, it’s not the words, it was where I was really coming from inside of myself, he felt that compassion. 

He said that it was like a mirror was being held up to him. I wasn’t intending to do that, but his own conscience kicked it. So normally, what would happen is I would react to his reaction, he would react to my reaction, and then it would go wherever I go. But in this situation, I wasn’t impacted in a negative way. I’m feeling compassionate towards him, he starts to feel his own conscience and realize what a jerk he’s been. He started to reel it back in himself. Like, whoa, whoa, wait a second here. 

That was a real defining moment in our relationship where we could never go back from that. I could never make him responsible for how I felt after that experience. It doesn’t mean that I don’t take things personally here and there. Still, occasionally I will. But I know that I’m doing it. I know that maybe I can’t help doing it, but it’s not really what’s going on. And so that that really shifted our relationship where there was room for both of our humanity, and I hadn’t had room for Angus’s humanity. 

I hadn’t had an open heart for when he was suffering in that way. Again, it wasn’t intentional, but my own conditioning would just come in, you could call it a trauma, I just would come in so quickly. And then I would react from that rather than being present. That has grown and deepened over time. 

I would say that it’s a similar response with the kids, although I was always much more able to be compassionate with the kids. And he could see that. So that was the other thing that would annoy him is, I was capable. For him, what I will say for a couple of things regarding the kids is, when my, especially my elder daughter, who’s more fiery, when she hit her teen years, and things would spark one of the other things that happened during this time is it with the kids, I would tend to mask. I would put on what I thought the good mother would do, and not be as transparent as honest in certain ways. 

And then after [discovering] the Principles and getting deeply impacted, one day, my daughter is not happy with me. I don’t remember the content, but there was a lot coming at me. And again, I’m not advocating for this, I’m not saying this is the right thing, this is part of my growth. But I, I lashed out, and it was painful, because I felt shame. And that’s not how I want to be as a mom. 

But I realized that the other way of being frozen, and not really being honest, was not healthy, either. And we were able to repair it afterwards. And it was then a learning journey of how do we be truthful with each other? And how do we show up human to human with each other. And that was not a one time thing. But it helped her realize I am human. And I do have my limits. 

But also, where I erred because I didn’t ever want to do that again. I would walk away so that I didn’t do that again. And she said to me at one point, you leave me when I need you the most. I’m like, but I’m leaving you because I don’t want to lose my cool with you. But she says, but I need you. So I thought, Oh, I have to dig deeper, I have to dig deeper so that I don’t take her lashing out when she’s really again, losing her when her nervous system would get dysregulated. And to really again, see that it’s not personal, and how do I not take that personally so that I can show up for her when she needs me. 

That was really good learning. And it was really powerful to be asked to do that. And realize the value in that. She wasn’t saying that she was behaving well at the time. But that would be the best that she could do. And knowing what I know about teenage brains, it’s like, yeah, of course, it’s hard to regulate yourself as a teenager. And the fact that she wanted me as her mom to help her even though she was very prickly and speaking at the time, so Okay, well, that’s, that’s a good thing. 

So that was a big learning curve. And each child is different. Our younger daughter, it’s a whole other experience with her. She was diagnosed and I think, is the 19 as a young adult with being on the spectrum, that we didn’t really know that, and again, like, wow, how did I notice that? It’s very subtle. But then when you put all of the dots together, you realize that oh, yeah, I can see that now. 

There were different sensitivities and different learning curve as to how to connect and support her with navigating that and for someone who was not into labels, I can get dogmatic about my approaches to things and for her to tell me having the diagnosis is really helpful for me, it helps me to understand myself better. And it’s really useful and like, oh, yeah, there it can be helpful. I understand that. So, and as long as it’s not pathologizing the person which she wasn’t experiencing that which was good. And so we just last week, dropped her off at college. So fingers crossed so far, so good.

Alexandra: Could you say a little bit more about that. 

Given that this is a paradigm of wellness and health how do you integrate a diagnosis like that with someone?

Rohini: The DSM really is about helping people understand and communicate about things. So it it’s a language that allows you to speak in a shorthand, basically. So it’s descriptive. It’s not prescriptive. For her to realize that she wasn’t the only person feeling some of the things that she was feeling was actually Oh, this is my brain processes things in this way. Oh, this is why I’m overstimulated by certain situations, or like, my nervous system doesn’t like that. 

Or, she would stuff a lot with the ruminating thoughts, OCD thinking, and just see oh, this fits into this experience that many other people have, and I’m not alone in it. And yes, it does mean that I might want to do things differently and make some accommodations, but it doesn’t mean anything about my value, who I am. 

It’s much more of a support to help her advocate from herself. In a sense, it’s funny to say, because it’s all about neurodiversity, but normalize herself within that continuum. So and helpful, even for me to read some of the literature to understand more of her internal experience better than I did previously.

Alexandra: Oh, fascinating.

So the diagnosis doesn’t mean that that she’s broken in any given way. It’s a descriptor.

Rohini: Yeah. And what was beautiful about the testing is the psychologist was really clear that these are gifts. There’s incredible gifts that come with this. There’s areas that are challenging, that it’s helpful to understand so that you can look to how to better take care of yourself rather than judging yourself because they’re challenging, or try to fix it in a way where it’s not helpful, but just to accept, and work around areas and then really lean into your strengths and gifts. Because there’s so many.

Alexandra: I love that. That’s so great. 

You touched on dealing with Angus’s anger, and how that affected you. Before the principles and after I have a similar reaction, when I’m in relationships, anger really freaks me out. And I’m very internal as well. I don’t I don’t express my anger, I tend to walk away and process it and that kind of thing. 

So I’m really curious about this idea of the two separate realities that we live in. And it just struck me the other day that we’re all walking around, I almost pictured it like we all have a goldfish bowl on our head. And that’s the world we live in. It’s astounding that any of us can get along at any given time given that what we’re experiencing is all here in the goldfish bowl. 

I wondered if we could explore a little bit when we’re in these separate realities, what it’s like to relate to somebody else in a healthy way. In a spousal relationship, let’s say.

Rohini: There’s something emerging, we’ll see if it will make sense. But it’s like there’s a continuum. This is what’s kind of occurring to me around this is that there’s our individual, separate reality with all of the details of that. And then the more we drop into what is universal, the more that kind of falls away. 

The more our separate reality becomes more rigid, the more fearful we are, the more contracted we are, the more stressed we are. And so I would say that the more we’re able to be in that softening, of the perception of separate realities, because there’s really only one reality, but we have these perceptions of different realities. So the more that we recognize that they look real, but they’re not, and that there is the capacity to drop into a deeper, more universal feeling within ourselves and live day to day in a more flexible reality than a rigid one. 

And, you know, thinking about Angus and myself, I didn’t realize I was living in a rigid reality. Like I said, I didn’t realize that my anger came out in the form of arrogance and judgment. It didn’t come out as a firework. But from Angus’s perspective, it was actually worse because it was it was almost like a gas that you couldn’t smell but it was pervading.

It’s not that one is better or worse than the other, both were challenging. When he got rigid, it looked a certain way, when I got rigid, it looked a certain way. And our relationship did not work. When that was happening, or it looked like it would didn’t work. 

Now what we can see is  – and it doesn’t really get that way that much now –  but if it even were, we would understand that’s temporary, that’s when we’re polarized, that’s when we’re really caught up. And this is what we behave like when we’re really freaked out. But thank goodness, we don’t live really freaked out every day. So we have room for that to happen.

We live much more now in a more flexible, open hearted space, where there’s less feeling of separate realities and more of a felt sense of universality, oneness. Like for me, the way that I experience it is through the feeling of an open heart, through the feeling of love, through the feeling of compassion, through the feeling of empathy. That’s what my felt experience is of what I’m pointing to in terms of that universality. And that’s how it shows up. 

So if I’m feeling that way, and I’m intentional about feeling I’m not manipulative and feeling that way. But I respect feeling that way. It’s something that is important to me. And it’s something that if there was an issue that was getting in the way of that I would want to address that, whether it’s within myself, whether it’s talking things through with Angus. So it’s like my preference is to live in that state more rather than less. And then this issue is separate realities doesn’t really come up.

Alexandra: Interesting. I really learned a lot from, from what you just said, amazing. Thank you so much. So we’re coming close to the end of our time here. 

Where can we find out more about you and your work?

Rohini: Our website probably is the best place: TheRewilders.org. And right now, we’re not spending time on social media, because we’re taking time to focus on writing a book. I’m always very hesitant to say that, but it feels supportive, but it’s like, is it ever going to appear? Is it going to happen? I don’t know. But we’re going to do our best to see what we can do on that level. So we realized that we needed to focus our energies in that direction.

Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes to TheRewilders.org so people can go and find you there. And you do you have you have some training and coaching that goes on, you have a membership as well.

Rohini: Well, there’s been some changes. Angus and I are really focusing on writing and our one on one practices. So for him, he does the one on one coaching and the couples intensives. And I do individual coaching packages and the couples work with him. 

The membership community is no longer in place, because we decided to put that on pause for now while we’re doing the writing and the training program as well. So those are not happening at this point in time.

Alexandra: I love that you’re navigating this in a way that that feels right for you at the time. That’s great.

Rohini: We realized that to focus on the training, the community and our private practices like that was full and to really carve out extra time, we weren’t able to do that. So we made some choices that are feeling good.

Alexandra: Good. Oh, that’s great. Well, thank you so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it.

Rohini: Thank you.

Featured image photo by Nikhita Singhal on Unsplash