Masculinity and femininity are present in all of us, regardless of gender. But having both and understanding how to make the most of those traits are different. Here to explain the concept deeper is Barry Selby. Barry is known as the Love Doctor by his audience with a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology and 22 years as a spiritual counselor. He has helped thousands learn to love themselves and live in wholeness. In this episode, he chats with host Baeth Davis about how masculinity and femininity affect us professionally and personally. He also unpacks how past experiences with relationships from childhood influence the relationships we have today. Stay tuned for an enlightening discussion that highlights self-love and embracing both sides of yourself to get ahead.

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Barry Selby, Manifesting Generator 6/2: Emasculation Is An Indication There Was No Masculinity In The First Place

I’m so happy to be with you. I’m excited about our topic. I’m going to introduce our topic and our guest to you. What we are going to talk about is this expression, “Painting over rust. When relationship rebounds, derail your recovery.” Our guest is the powerful, loving, and deeply enjoyable spiritual teacher, Barry Selby.

He is a passionate champion for the divine feminine. He helps strong, successful women create balance and love life and business. He awakens women to own and express their feminine majesty in love and the world. He helps his clients heal their hearts, sourcing their love and support so they may fully embrace their magnificence and help these women attract relationships that are equal with who they are.

As a masterful relationship attraction expert, Barry is affectionately known as the love doctor to his audience. With many years of training and experience, including a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology and several years as a spiritual counselor, he has helped thousands to learn to love themselves and live in wholeness.

He brings deep compassion, gentle masculine strength, presence, and wise guidance to assist his clients in their journey to true love. He is an in-demand inspirational speaker, standing for love, healthy romance and deeply passionate relationships. With that, let us bring on our incredible guest, Barry Selby. I’m bringing him on the show. Barry, welcome.

The intro sounds so nice it is hearing it back to me. I feel like, “Wow.” It is the truth. To be honest, I’m not making stuff up.

Would I have someone on the show who made stuff up? We have known each other for decades. Where did we first meet?

It was some meetup group meetings.

Share with all of us what do you mean by painting over rust?

It has come up to me in some of my talks. For those who don’t know, I have been very busy on Clubhouse since the app came out, which is an audio app. It has helped me clarify some of my messaging. “Painting over rust” is one of my descriptors because what I read most people do when they break up in relationships, I did the same thing, so I know the pain of this is rather than face what happened, it was like, “What is next? How can I move on?”

The divine feminine is actually way stronger than the masculine.

It is the idea of when he paints over rust because I had the visual of a car panel, not cleaning the rust off first and watching the paint bubble as the rust came through. That is what happens in relationships. It sums up the fact that we do not clear out the old stuff. It won’t go away and stay hidden. It will start to come back through again. It is important to clean up the mess but do the self-reflection after breakups where you come forward to the next relationship.

I had a dream about someone I had dated who drove up in their car, which I know had been in a car accident many years before. They did not even have this car anymore but in the dream, they did. They had restored the car but not really. It was duct-taped back together and they painted over it in this charcoal, matte gray-black primer.

You could see the rust and the bubbles through the paint. I remember waking up from the dream and he opened the door for me, “Would you like to go for a drive?” For some reason, I was like, “Is it safe?” He was like, “Yes.” He even put the seatbelt on me and I was like, “Okay.” We drove off into the sunset. We did not speak a word to each other after that.

I do not know what the dream means in my future if anything. When I got up and wrote about the dream, I wrote down that this person was in some repair work, but they have done like a slap-job of it. They were trying to woo me back in the dream, but they had not finished the restoration of the vehicle, which is themselves. That dream could not be more obvious. It is someone else’s soul saying, “I’m trying to get it together but I’m not quite there yet. The car runs but it needs to get a real full-body work job done.”

I saw Nike posted it once. They realized, “I shouldn’t do that.” They took it off again. It shows a picture of this woman sitting on this stack of steamer, trunks, suitcases and things. It is something about, “Look for the one who is going to help you unpack your baggage.” I’m like, “No.” That dream had resonated in that experience. The thing is, sometimes dreams are foretelling or at least explaining what is going on. You did not necessarily think about it consciously but in the dream, you go, “I understand.” We do have this thing where we look at something through rose-tinted spectacles but through that lens of like, “It could be okay.” Part of me knows better, but you won’t trust that part that knows better.

What would you say are maybe the top three issues that women come to you in terms of embracing their divine feminine? If you would like to throw in there an explanation of what the divine feminine is and three different ways that women block, obstruct, or in some ways, do not take ownership of their divine self.

I told you this in other talks, how we are in a very patriarchal structure in the business world, especially women who have gone out to work in the business world because that is what women were allowed to do back in the ‘60s. They would embody what men were doing. The divine feminine would get suppressed or ignored once they went to work. They start dating or go to happy hours and meet men, but they have not disengaged that part that they are still running the same male way of doing things, which is the hunter type method mindset.

I was on the receiving end of this a few times. I would ask the men to lead or take charge. There was no room for the man to be in his masculine. To be honest, a lot of men have not owned their masculinity either. There was disparity as well. That is one piece. The second piece is a lot of women did not know what that was to own their feminine. They somehow thought their femininity was weak because the ones that were taught of them were that men were stronger than women. Therefore, women should try and men to be stronger. That was subconscious programming that we are getting.

The third piece is the lack of trust of men. Many women are going through bad relationships. They had experiences, whether it was even from family dynamics, where they were abused, neglected or disrespected. They did not feel that they could trust the men they were with. I seem to see a lot in my work with my clients and audience. I talk about it in some different ways but one thing to say is to recognize that the feminine is way stronger than the masculine. It is called Mother Nature, not father nature.

I do not think any man would ever handle childbirth. Recognize that women had the physical and fortitude to handle a lot more pain than men can. The other part is that our culture has not taught how men need to be more masculine versus macho. Our whole thing about toxic masculinity isn’t a misnomer. It’s not true and also, macho was not.

The women have not been shown that the feminine is also one worthy, deserving and whether they thrive more powerfully. There are few women out there doing this. I know a couple of friends of mine who are very aligned in their feminine nature and leadership. They teach other women to do the same thing. I’m on the hill saying, “Ladies, please do that. We need you to do that.”

The feminine energy in simple terms is feminine is movement. It is the light of expression and exuberance. The masculine as being the end of the young or the opposite is more stillness, presence and depths. In some ways, the truest is that masculinity is almost of death itself. It is infinite but in a very clean and solid place where the feminine is the movement of energy that moves around everywhere.

These two work together in terms of the yin and yang type of methodology. The way things are set up is that masculine is a more directional focus. The feminine is more witnessing and able to include some of the other pieces too. These are the two polarities. When women own their femininity, they discover much more power they have, but not from a place of pushing power but a more embracing power. That is part of it.

One analogy I have used, which is a better metaphor that I was taught by one of my teachers, is that the feminine is a powerful river running down the hillside side towards the ocean. It is a strong, directional flowing through the forest. The masculine is the river banks and the created structure. The feminine has the river, but the truth is those river banks don’t contain the river.

They create structure because the river can burst into the banks. Pretty much anytime the river gets full. Women have to remember they have that much power. We have to remember that we can serve that as men. It is not about us controlling. It is about us supporting and creating environments where the feminine can thrive.

Do you think that there are more women, statistically, that are awake to their path than men at this point in history? Do you think it is 50/50?

I strongly suspect women are waking up to this. I’ve been in the post-development field since the mid-‘80s. In almost every single seminar I was in, there were more women than men in the room. There is one of the secrets the fact that there were more women than men in these environments, but the recognition is that more women have been fascinated, driven, or curious about personal development about transformation and spiritual learning than men have been over the years. I believe women are more aware of an awakening to what femininity is than men are towards masculinity. The last segment of the population who has never done any work or transformational reflection of themselves is a straight White male because no one told them anything wrong with them.

They set up the structure. It was a self-referential structure. It wasn’t a self-correcting structure. It was a dominator structure, “We are in charge and the rest of you are all our peons.” That is coming on glute.

When women own their feminine, they discover much more power, not from a place of pushing but more embracing.

The need for a matriarch is getting much stronger, in my view.

One of the terms I have learned from human design, from Richard Rudd, who created the Gene Keys, is this concept of synarchy. It is when the matriarchy and patriarchy rule together. It is not like the divine feminine is awakening because she has been asleep. She has been repressed. She participated in the repression, but men and women all have a life purpose.

This is my whole argument. We are not a role. We are not maids, whores, and mothers exclusively. We are fully comprehensive beings, and that is what is coming on. I also think that men have a divine feminine that they are deeply out of touch with. What I have seen as the poison of patriarchy is that it is impacted everyone across the board.

The men are confused about their roles. They do not know how to be masculine, whatever that means. They confuse it with machismo. They are not able to express their feelings. Most of the dating advice to women is all about how to coddle and tiptoe around men. You think if you give a man feedback or offer him some criticism, granted not unsolicited, but if you say to a man, “Do you want some feedback?” They are like, “Yes.” You tell them and they retaliate passive-aggressively for the feedback they said they wanted. I’m like, “What are we? Five years old?” This is where I get exasperated.”

Let me get this straight. I got to walk around a man’s ego because it is made of eggshells. If I say one thing wrong, he’s going to be, “She is trying to control me.” The women to their side are clueless about men. They go into these dating things and are sleeping with guys. I’m like, “These guys are not going to call you back. What are you doing?”

They are like, “I want a long-term thing with him, but he is not committing.” I’m like, “Are you having sex with him?” They’re like, “Yes.” I’m like, “That is doomed. Stop having sex with him and tell him you want a committed relationship. You are not having sex with him until he tells you he wants a committed relationship. If he does not, go find someone else.”

This is not rocket science but I wonder, “Is it just me?” The exasperations you hear from my own experience in talking to men and women is it seems that most of the men and women are pulling their hair out, trying to have some basic intimacy like good sex and the ability to converse about whatever is going on without it becoming some stupid fight. I’m like, “Why is this so hard?” It seems like humanity is not in touch with their feelings. I don’t know. That is what I’m seeing.

All of the population carries masculine-feminine energy as well. I look at it as being a spectrum between masculine and feminine. I’m asking the masculine on one end and the feminine on the other end. There would be somebody in between. Somebody who is in the middle of 50/50 is androgynous. There is no real polarity in the way. It is enough to be sexually attracted to anybody. It is an unfortunate place. If you live there, you won’t care but we live somewhere on that spectrum.

A man in his masculine is probably running 70% to 80% masculine and 20% or 30% feminine. A woman who is not feminine is probably the inverse of that. We do carry both. Depending on what we are doing, it requires one of those different polarities. Driving a car, the direction is more masculine energy whether you are in a male or female body. Independent of your physical gender, you are probably more in your feminine.

The way that the masculine and feminine are expressed is something we have not talked about for a long time and we have been denying it. Some of my favorite teachers explain this in the ways that I love to use reference. When we recognize we carry both, it gives us more freedom. Conflating masculinity with macho is a big mistake. The way I’ve described it oftentimes, I’m talking about the way it physically seems to express is that macho men are neck up in balls. In the way the physiology is, it is like sexual drive but with ego from the neck up running the show, trying to get these done selfishly my way or their way.

The masculine is more of an open heart and a strong spine. It is directional, clear, compassionate and caring. Even though it is always equally everything but that separate those distinct energetics, for me explains why masculine and macho were different. Why toxicity belongs in the camp of macho is because it is ego-driven. Masculinity in its true state is never toxic. It is about service.

In my human design chart, my outer personality to interact with other people is much more yang, masculine. My design side, personal life, physical body, who I am as a person is much more feminine. I was at one of Carol Allen’s workshops, and she gave everyone a quiz. It was the yin yang quiz. I was wondering how I would do on it because when I’m out in the world, I have primarily men, not women. I had men say to me, “You are so in your masculine.” I’m like, “My life purpose is called the general. There is nothing higher than the general. I don’t know what to tell you. Everybody follows the general. I’ve got five stars and got in line. It is how I’m wired. What are you going to do?”

I’m a pussy cat. My personal life is different. I took this yin-yang test, and sure enough, I was 85% yin and 15% yang. Carol said to me, “I’m not surprised. You are very feminine. The way you orient people, connect with people and the community. You are very nurturing, open with your feelings, and good with boundaries.” The delivery and presence are strong. I do not suffer fools.

Many men are intimidated by my intelligence. You saw it happen on the call we were on. That happens to me all the time. People try to shut me down. They make little digs and make fun of where I went to school because they are jealous. I’m like, “Help us all. Women are as intelligent as men. We all have things to share here.”

This is my personal, you can tell. I have some angst about this. I need your help, love doctor. What is the deal with this fragile eggshell ego of the masculine? I am not going to rearrange myself so some guy who is not masculine, when I asked him a question or he asked for my input and I said, “Here’s my input,” they do not talk to me for three days. I’m like, “You need to grow up. Do not ask me or I will not tell you, even if you asked me.” I am baffled by this. You do not seem like you have an eggshell ego.

I have been through enough to learn.

Thank you for getting a steel spine and an open heart. That is what I want to see. That is masculine to me, not this wimpy, “I want to be a man. I’m so masculine.” A woman says one wrong thing and they are crying in their cups. I’m like, “What is going on?”

Emasculation is an indication that there was no masculinity in the first place. This macho is a shell. It is so awesome because it is the shell that needs to be protected to become overt. Those people will have all the accouterments of looking good. Oftentimes, they are in the macho because that is the ego translate, “Look at me and what I have done.” None of it has solidity. It is like this house of cards. A masculine man is somebody who knows who he is and his depths. Frankly, the accessories around him come and go. It is no big deal. That is a nice thing, but it is not like a section that must have them. That is the difference. In the beginning, it is not ego-driven.

Conflating masculinity with macho is a big mistake.

My path, because it has been my path for a long time, was hard work first. I only discovered the masculine part back in 2007. The last several years of my work have been discovering that I live in my true direction and purpose. Up to that point, I was always doing the open heart spiritual work. To be honest, in my relationships years ago, I was the nice guy because I had an open heart, no spine and clarity on the direction. It was wishy-washy.

Those guys will get to eat for lunch too. I cannot stand either one and be around it. The wimpy guys or nice guys are the most dangerous because they are so manipulative. They use guilt and manipulation like, “I’m such a good guy.” I’m like, “You are not.” You have the macho guys who are also dangerous but for a different reason, they can even be physically aggressive.

I have a theory about this. I want to run by you because you are a man. We lived in patriarchy for 5,000 plus years, which means that males are valued more than females. We have diminished the feminine. Look at the planet. We have raped mother earth. There is plastic in every fish in the ocean. There is trash everywhere. We have been extinctic 40% of our species since the ‘70s. There’s a lot of imbalance.

My theory is that because the masculine is more valued in patriarchy than the feminine, mostly mothers because they are usually primary caregivers, a grandmother or auntie, it is usually the women in the family who spoil these boys like their little King Tut. That is why they have fragile egos because they grow up to be adults.

They think women are going to cater to them, do their laundry, feed them, cuddle them, never criticize them, never have a complaint, never say, “Shape up.” “What is the deal?” I do not know if I’m right about that or not, but in a lot of cultures, especially in India, China and Japan, women will leave them on a hillside to die. The West is slightly better in how it treats women but not a lot.

I wonder about this. There seems to be this entitlement. As a result, there’s a real shallowness, superficiality, and inability to handle conflict, feedback and be brave. When I think about Braveheart, that popular movie and how much people love Braveheart, I’m like, “You could not be fucking Braveheart if your life depended on it.” Man or woman is what I see in the world. You can hear my exacerbation. Barry, I have been through so much shit because of who I am.

For years, I made myself wrong about this. I’m like, “It must be me.” Everyone around me would be like, “It is not you, Baeth. It is that you happen to see what’s going on. As a result, you will not let people get away with it.” The other piece of it for me is that I relate to people on a soul level. I have committed to dealing with people on a soul level. They are coming out with their fake stuff. I wonder what you think about that, what you have observed with your female clients and male clients and what you have seen.

For me, to speak from my experience, I grew up in England in a very reserved, stiff, upper lip, Jewish family, white bread, not very emotional. My father was not like machismo, but he was held back emotionally. The look I had for my dad was to be like King Saul’s firstborn, be stoic, a bit more suppressed and unemotional. I’m like, “No way. I cannot do that.”

I went the other way, which was to be the nice guy. It was more fluid and flexible, plus I was bullied in high school, which added to my lack of desire to be macho because they were not fighting against that. The thing was that I discovered looking back is that I saw that there were only two choices, nice guy, bad boy, or macho.

When I was guided to immerse myself in the masculine-feminine conversation back in 2007, I finally figured out the third piece, which was I did not realize what you elevate above the boat, which is masculinity. A nice guy is suppressed and unable to take on the strengths. The macho guy is not necessarily strength but toughness without any heart or compassion. I did not know this third option. That was the thing for me.

We do not teach any of this stuff. We have sex education in high school, but we do not have relationship education or say what masculine and feminine priority is. Our culture is lacking education. At the same time, people are blindly stumbling from relationship to relationship based on what they learned from their parents when they were five years old. That is a whole other piece too.

We are not learning ourselves. Back to the title for a second, the painting rust idea, we do not have the awareness to take action to learn what we are doing wrong if we are going to the next relationship. We repeat the same cycle. Women are more open to learning. They are developing most somewhat, not fast. Men and not even on the same method at this point because most men are like, “I screwed up. Okay, next. She screwed up. What is next?” Without going, “What can I do differently going forward?”

I want to go through these stages of the painting over the rust. Barry, what are some of the symptoms, signs, or ways people go about the rebound? They have left a relationship. They are not stopping to go, “Why does this keep happening? What is my part? Maybe I need some Barry love doctor support.” They go into this other thing. What are some of the behaviors you see that are dysfunctional when people end relationships?

First of all, they hate being single. Being alone somehow is the end of the world. They cannot do it. They fail especially once you get past 30 or 40 years old. If you are alone, there is something wrong with you because you should be together with somebody. The fear of being alone stops people from staying in that place of being alone. They are like, “That was done. I will find the next relationship quickly.”

Some people go a few weeks between relationships and they do not take the time to stop. One thing is they are not even willing to trust themselves being single. Another one is that oftentimes, the pain is something they are not willing to dive into because it is too much pain. Rather than that, they look for the Band-Aid or the next relationship, which is like a Band-Aid. It is the avoidance of pain.

A lot of times, what people are doing is that they are backing away from what did not work into the next relationship over their shoulder without looking where they are going. Their choices are not working out either. The third piece is oftentimes what people do, and I do this myself. We are going to the next relationship and have the same thing happen after the last relationship. We do not realize it until it is too late.

I talk about going back to our childhood because we are not raised in schools to learn how relationships work. What happens is we learn by example when we are young. Our parents or caregivers model to us how love is expressed, good, bad, or indifferent. We take that in at a very young age without any conscious volition. We take it and go. That is the way it is because we are learning from 0 to 5 years old without any understanding of what life is about. We go with that must be the way it is.

We have volition show up and start to decide what we are choosing, but we have already stored five years’ worth or more of understanding behind that gate of the way life is. As an adult and many of my clients have seen and I have seen in myself, we tend to date people especially in their twenties and beyond, that mirror the relationship patterns my parents had. We do not learn independently how to be in a relationship, and we wonder why the relationship gets going the same part.

Toxicity belongs in the camp of macho because it’s so ego-driven. In its true state, masculinity is never toxic; it’s about service.

Some people had amazing parents who taught them to love effectively, properly, healthy and all those things. They have no problem in relationships. Most of us tend to find someone with reciprocal patterns that fit together with us. We end up repeating the same pattern. Whether it was addiction, abandonment, abuse, yelling or suppression, whatever it was that our parents demonstrated to us, we copied the same thing as an adult.

A lot of us carry our relationship ends as a hereditarily learned behavior, not a read genetic pattern. What would our parents do that they learn from their parents and beyond? We may be carrying down generational patterns because we would demonstrate it too. They demonstrate to us what does not work. Let’s say the way it works, which does not work, but we do not know differently. We carried on into our adult life.

For many people, when we start looking back and go, “You already want to keep doing that.” You got to find where it started, which is what our parents did.

On both sides of my family, the majority of men were philandering drunkards. I have dated a wide assortment of philandering addicts. One of my coaches gave me this great mantra to help me not get into rebounds when I have broken up from these relationships. For full disclosure, I am single and it is not for lack of trying. Believe me, I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on relationship coaching therapy.

These cycles are hard to break. One of my counselors said to me, “Baeth, here is your mantra going forward. This is what you have to screen for. Is he an addict? Is he emotionally available? Is he asking to be in a relationship?” Those three things. That is giving me baseline criteria. I did not ever learn to screen for criteria. I would think, “I like this person. They showed up in my path. It is synchronicity. It must be meant to be. Let’s go with the flow.” I go with the flow. 6 months, 8 months, 1 year in, I’m like, “God.” They put a good front up for a while and they cannot hide it anymore.

I’m not codependent. The minute I see it, I’m like, “I’ve got to go. I don’t have any patients with it.” My experience sounds like your experience and the experience of 90% of humanity, best I can tell. From my research, it looks like only about 10% of people are truly secure. They are usually with each other. We are energetic, so we are always putting out a frequency and it is always being mirrored.

What I recognized after the last one was like, “This is not happening again.” I have to re-wire my infant psyche from 0 to 3. This has not been easy. This is shadow work. Will you share with our readers what you do to help your divine feminine clients? The first question is how do you help them get out of the rebound? What are some of the steps that you take with them in the coaching to help them get out?

The first one is to tell them to stop. We had only looked at the ground we were standing on and we were like, “Next.” Stop and see where you are. What is going on? Can you be with what is going on? A lot of times, it is the avoidance of what is perceived as upset inside that we are trying to avoid in the relationship. Most of them come to me is because they have stopped and go, “I do not want to deal with this. Let me get some help.” It is why it is on their part.

We start talking about, “What is in the way?” The thing is this thread that we are talking about with the past relationship is to look back at the past relationships through and notice the common threads because that is going to be the clues. They will be the little red flags going, “Hang on, that one again. That thread.”

Be honest with yourself. Say, “What do I remember from my childhood? What were my parents doing? How are they expressing that I did not look at them clearly and see if they match?” The philandering you have done or the addiction, you look back into your parents and it may not be the same addiction or the methodology but the same threads are there.

From my counseling background, let’s talk about parenting. It is shadowed for me. In a way, it is lighter because it is about bringing light and safety to the child. The child becomes reeducated in a way but by invitation, not by force. That way, it becomes a healthy relationship. That part of ourselves starts to live more fully inside ourselves with a much more aligned and positive experience. That becomes part of the journey. I have done what is called parts integration, which is to bring all different aspects together because we are a bunch of parts flying around sometimes not talking to each other.

Let’s have a conversation and bring everybody around. I remember I was in a seminar talking about this. When I was a participant, I ended up having the knights of the round table like Camelot feeling because some different voices are going on inside, “Let’s come to the table and talk.” It became hysterically funny because I knew what was going on, but I let these parts of myself talk back at me. It was such an interesting conversation because I recognized these were my voices and who I am in different parts of my life. I was like, “Let’s get everybody on the same page.” At times, it was frustrating but I look back with those views go, “How silly that was.” I recognize that who I am, especially now, is so much more relaxed about life because they are not fighting. It is myself. A lot of us do that.

What is one of the nuanced shifts that a client shared with you when they finally found a good, healthy relationship in the process of working with you? What did they maybe notice they were doing or feeling differently that had signaled the pattern had shifted?

This is one of the overtones I like talking about, which is a lot of stuff relationships. This happened more than one time but one of my clients started recognizing that she did not need somebody outside her to make her feel good. That was the wiring she had, which many of us do. She does not recognize that she enjoyed her own company finally for the first time. She was an affordance at the time where she enjoyed being with herself.

At that time, she was in her 40s. She had a granddaughter who had just been born. She was very devoted to the granddaughter but also pulled away from herself because she was not taking care of herself. This relationship was a painful safety net for her. She was not working. What she was hoping to do was to disengage because she wanted to leave but did not know how but she learned to help herself to love herself. She started recognizing how much value she had looked inside. Self-love was the shift that she needed.

I recognize myself similarly but differently. The pattern that I was stuck in was looking for validation. I didn’t even realize it until I said to myself, “Why am I looking into men I find sexy to validate me? This is weird. I can validate myself.” It was such a massive epiphany. I started validating myself every morning, night, in my journal and throughout the day.

I felt there was a weight lifted off of me because I was in a compulsive seeking of validation, not even realizing unconsciously that is what I was hoping for. It made me a mark for people that poured on the charm and the compliments to this old Leo here because we are suckers for compliments. It is true. We are weak that way and for flattery.

I know that about myself, vain and weak for flattery is the shadow. I was like, “How do I validate myself?” I created my recovery program to validate. I love that you are saying this about self-love. We’ll look at your design. Will you share with everyone what Barry’s take on self-love is? How do you define it?

Emasculation is an indication there was no masculinity in the first place.

It is funny because the day after Valentine’s Day, you are supposed to be singles and I’m like, “You’ve got to be aware you are single.” I called it self-appreciation day. My clients are building self-appreciation, self-esteem, self-trust, a lot of self things because self-love is the little knot on the top of the package. The package includes self-forgiveness, self-trust, self-esteem, self-support with different things that we have we build for ourselves.

It depends on where somebody is, where they are not aligned with themselves, helping them come back into alignment. They feel fully supportive because we can say, “Put my hand up. I love myself.” What about the judgment you carry about what we did not do in the past? What are you dealing with relationship issues or stuff you have not accomplished yet? How do you deal with that? Are you accepting what’s going on? Are you loving yourself? Do you trust your agreements? It is all of these components. Self-worth is in it too but one of the things that are such an interesting fallacy is that willingness is not something we have to get. It’s who we already are and we forget.

Self-worth was never my issue. People would say to me, “It is your self-worth.” I’m like, “No, I’m in a bad habit.” I do think some people have low self-worth. Some people have terrible boundaries, and they put up with the worst nonsense from people because of their low self-worth. It seems to me that whatever the patterns were from early childhood until they become conscious, we cannot unravel them.”

I found out in my therapy that I had decided to fix things from my mother. I had made this decision when I was eighteen months old. I tried to imagine the conflict and dynamic between my mother and my father when I was eighteen months old. It was not that great. From what both of them have told me about their maturity level and what they were doing in their own lives, I thought, “Wow.” The little child is absorbing their anxiety. They are anxious and very self-centered.

They were young. The retention was on themselves and in their concerns. I’m a very social, tactile, affectionate person. I’m an extrovert. I need a lot of human contacts. I had two parents that were doing whatever. It was very traumatic. Can you walk us through the process you take someone through when you work with a client?

It is different for every client. First of all, finding out where they are, getting clear about what is happening, where they are, what is the most challenging, trauma, upset or feelings. Let me go back to resolve that and start looking at the threads. Building a framework of what is going on to know what needs to be fixed is the first step because awareness is usually the first step.

If it requires us to go back to childhood to realign patterns, we will do that. Using the analogy of the painting the rust, it’s defined to strip and clean off rust once and all back to bare metal. It is clean again because most of us keep accumulating more junk on top of who we are. One of the members talking to Barbara De Angelis used to make love work. She was married to John Gray way back then.

She was doing a lecture years ago and said about the challenge if we do not deal with and heal our past emotional wounds, then we go out and date someone again. We imagine that we have this sea or ocean of love that we have to express but when we do not heal stop, it is like we are putting ice on top of the ocean. Slowly but surely, we are filling up the top of the ocean. The ocean is the love we get to express. The more we cover it up, the less we can give.

Relationships we go into, if we don’t heal those past emotional upsets, wounds, hurt feelings and heartbreaks, we are simply covering up more of the love we can give. We can only be so loving to the number of wounds we have not healed. The more we do the healing work, the more loving we can be for ourselves in somebody else. It is all in that mix that I work with my clients to become more available to love themselves. They can express it to themselves and somebody else.

Do you think that maybe we are moving more into a love frequency because there has been such an overemphasis on material acquisition and money? We are hungry for heart connection and love. People are starving.

The challenge is that because we are needing it more, there are more against showing up in the way of that first. The more light that comes on the planet, the darker it gets. It got constraints like big zits that were bursting. Those expressions against this, division and divisiveness, I like and hope to think that it is the last vestiges of the true emptiness that we have been fighting all over the years because there is more light coming on but I will go more functional love, relational love and community love where we can be more in alignment, do discuss an argument. We are going to have progress versus stumbling. It is possible. We are not there yet but we are working towards it.

As people learn to love themselves, they naturally become more self-respecting and can extend that respect to others and recognize that other people are different. They have different experiences, feelings, thoughts and opinions. All are valid and welcome

Most of the division happening in different countries, including the United States, is from a very immature and ignorant place. The more we grow, learn to love, be compassionate and somebody has an opposite view, we start seeing that it is not them. That is the view they have. We can talk about them and if we both have the maturity, we can find a middle ground of that concept.

Let’s have a look at your chart before we wrap up. Was there anything you wanted to explore?

My throat has been doing a lot of work more because I found that it has become a strength to communicate in spreads.

You are a manifesting generator and the reason for this is you have this solar plexus here that connects to your sacral, which is the sex chakra. This goes up through the 29-46, to the G center and the 1-8 up to the throat. You have a wonderful thing in your design.

It is called a single definition. It is interesting because it is not the most well suited to partnership, not in a traditional sense. You got to be flexible about your definition of a relationship. You probably do well with someone else that needs a ton of freedom. There is so much need for alone time in this design of yours to research, study, be with your creativity, do your writing and all that good stuff yet, you are a very sensual sexual person. I look at some people’s charts and I even ask them, “How do you feel about sex?” They are like, “No.” You’ve got a lot of warmth too, and I will show you where.

You got the meeting channel and the 46-29 channel. I’m blanking on the name of the channel but it is about the love of the body and is devoted to taking care of your body because your body when it is loved tends to take you to the right places at the right time. Good fortune is very much about how we are embodied. It’s our embodiment that creates good fortune.

Building a framework of what’s really going on to know what needs to be fixed is the first pass because awareness is usually the first step.

You have the whole embodiment channel and it is a tantra channel. You also have half of the other two tantra channels. There are three tantra channels here. We talk about tantra. It is about sexuality and census. You got the meeting channel, this love of the body and fourteen is about loving work and putting sexual energy into your work, the life force that does work. The work may or may not have a sexual theme to it, but there is the love of work. Five is being very disciplined. You will tend to be orderly and rhythmic in how you go about things. You like to have routines and some consistency. You also have gate nine, which is about focus. This is going to give a modicum of regularity to your life.

Let’s go to your question. This is an overview here but you are doing the right work. The left angle cross of dominion is you are here to instill doubt in people about what they think they know, their preconceived ideas and then you teach them a different way. Your core genius is to teach people about the partnership. It’s gate 45 line 2, which is about partnership and being separate.

Think of the towers. 1 and 1 add up to 2, but 2 can be unified. It can be aligned but it can also be very divisive. The 45 is the king gate. It is the energy of the king. In women, it is the energy of the queen. Your core genius is being the king, who helps others learn about what it is to be a king and how to attract a king if that is what they are wanting. How to be open to the king like love?

You are on the cutting edge of something here, Barry, because there aren’t that many men at this point in history and body in king energy. Most of the leaders of these corporations and countries, if you asked me, are complete psychopathics like a sociopath. They are narcissistic. It is a nightmare. I do not think they are kings. A lot of them are white-collar criminals.

You go out on the dating apps and got not secure people mostly. You got lots of anxious and avoidant types, the clingers and the runners. You are coming in with the 45 to teach people about the abundance that comes from love. I do not even know that most of humanity is aware that it is an open heart that creates prosperity, not a close miserly scrooge heart.

We have forgotten that love is the most important thing in the world. It is everything. This G center is the magnet that holds your body together. We are made up of stardust. HeartMath, which you might be familiar with, has shown that when people meditate on their heart, on opening their heart and on loving more, their body emits more photons which is more light. We are channeling more light through our bodies, which is amazing to me when we love.

Your 45 is up here in your design earth, which is the most grounded instinctive aspect of you moving through time and space with your body. You are here to be an educator. You are not meant to do all the work, although you are a good leader. This is a leadership gate. The 1-8 is a leadership channel. You have gate 31, which is leadership, and gate 10 is part of a leadership channel. You do not want the other side of it but there is so much leadership in this design.

What you’re here to do is influence people to be more creative about how they engage in relationships, to embrace their sexuality and the love of their body. You have so much love energy going on here. This is what you are here to communicate. Do you see how that channel connects to the throat? The eight talks about how we benefit others when we are creative and by developing ourselves. That is part of the communication there.

The 45 is teaching. The 31 is influencing, and the 43-23 channel is the genius channel. This is individual energy that empowers people. You do not ever know when the genius is going to flow through. You got to wait for the right timing so that people do not think you are a freak. The freak to genius channel is we get a lot of information that comes through. We’ve got to communicate it. It is waiting for the right timing.

There has great energy, massive prosperity and money in this chart. You never have to worry about money ever. If you are worried about money, that will block your money because this is the chart of someone lucky. I do not know if you have any limitations around prosperity but you are meant to be very wealthy.

I would encourage you to line up with being the king and start asking, “What would King Barry do? Where would King Barry live? What would King Barry drive?” You need to be a little bit more superficial or bring in the superficial. Forty-six is about a dormant but it is unconscious in you. You are very fashionable. You got that. When people are stylish and it comes from self-love, it is wonderful versus the costume.

There are a couple of things on there. Thank you for that. I go, “I did not recognize that. It was nice to have that confirmation.” It is funny because 2006 was my last breakup. I was upset with that. I got the new skills so I wanted to be in a relationship. I started dating and it did not work. For the last several years, I have been happily single, not needing anybody. I have been on dating apps and checking people out. It is not so much being too selective. It is just I’m not attached to anybody. It is an interesting dance. I have been thinking that I would love to be doing my work with a partner doing the work with me in a way that overlaps. I recognize that we have to walk our path separately at the same time as that, which is interesting.

It would be great if you had a relationship coach who had her own business. Here is the deal with a single definition of people. You always need your space. Even if you share a home, you need a man cave, a man guest house, a man attic or whatever your jam is, but you need a place where the doors are padlocked and no one goes in there unless they have permission.

As a single definition with this much power, you learn things quickly. The insights come to you rapidly. You are self-sufficient and self-contained in this design. Your need for the other isn’t there, whereas my centers are not all connected. It is called split definition. Split definitions are about 50% of the population. Those of us that are split or happiest in a partnership. We can relax because somebody bridges the split.

When we are with that person, all of our energy can connect. There has this feeling of peace and homecoming. The other cannot do that for you. The other person has to be a tremendous complement to your life and someone you enjoy being with, or what is the point? You figure everything out yourself anyway.

I finally realized in my chart, “I should not ever live with someone. I am very independent.” I have had it my whole life. I moved from the age of thirteen. I’m like, “I’m not getting married and having kids.” I did get married and had step-kids. I ended up divorced and it was a nightmare. I look back like, “I should have stayed true.” I knew it at thirteen.

I was not cut out for traditional roles. I gave it a shot but it caused me misery. It is because I need to be alone for 4 or 5 hours a day to study. I have been this way since I was eight years old. It’s owning how we are in a relationship and not being controlled by the status quo or the public. What would you say to a woman who wants that partnership but she has given up?

The sarcastic one would say, “You are right. If you are going to give up, you will not get what you want.” The fact is, are you looking for a relationship because you are missing something, or are you looking for relationships, as you were saying about myself, finding who has to my life the way that fits what I want? Many people are looking for a relationship from a place of lack.

If we don’t heal those past emotional upsets, wounds, hurt feelings, heartbreaks, we’re just simply covering up more and more of the love we can give.

Jerry Maguire’s quote, “You complete me,” they are in that mindset still. The codependent paradigm, where, “When that person shows up, I’ll be happy.” “Be happy. Let them. It does not show up.” There is that wiring that it would make. Especially for my clients, I would do it myself because it is easy. I feel whole as I am. My clients are fully supported and invested in who they are. The relationship is easy to find because they are being more magnetic and visible to that relationship. It is not inside.

Sometimes I find even people not in a relationship can be very good teachers over relationship in part because all of that time alone has helped you to know yourself so well and understand relationship dynamics. I would say, “Give yourself a pass.” The intimacy that is going to work for you is not traditional. It certainly is not having someone around you all the time.

It is like you come together, it is lovely, you both go away, come together and go away. Even if you wanted to date multiple people, if they were all keen on it, you could do that because you do not attach the way I attach. If someone bridges my split, they do complete me and the circuit. I can access parts of me I can’t access on my own. Whereas for you, you can access most of yourself without another person. That is a big difference between people. It is a huge deal. I was not trying to correct you. I was agreeing with what you were saying, but you would need a very unconventional set-up.

I feel monogamy is my preference. If you would go to multiple parts, to be honest, it is too much to keep track of. A person who is in that place that fits would go perfectly.

I feel the same way. I cannot be bothered. I very much like to get to know a person and be intimate with them. I do not share well. I’m sure it is the Leo thing too. I’m not excessively jealous but if someone is not clean with me, I will get jealous of their history because I’m not going to do that. Any final words of wisdom for our readers?

We all deserve a relationship and we talked about my job. It is not about a suit of deserving. It is about preference and being aligned to your true values. It is okay not to match everybody else that I do know.

It is about being you, trusting the way you are wired, and creating your life accordingly. We are all quite different. This has been wonderful. Everyone who is reading, go to BarrySelby.com. Take advantage of Barry’s free resources and get this community. Barry, this has been awesome. I would love to have you back. I feel like we could talk for hours. I had to bite my tongue because I wanted you to talk. I get excited and riled up about this subject matter because I have seen so much of it, the good, bad and ugly. Any final words for our audience?

Love is a joyful thing to have and do it for yourself first. I always recommend that. Do the work to find your way back to yourself because we are the best relationship we have in the first place.

I read that men will tend to choose a long-term partner, someone that loves themselves more than they love the partner. That is very important. You have to love yourself the most.

It is one relationship you spend your whole life with.

Thank you, Barry. Thank you for another wonderful episode. We’ll see you next time.

Important Links:

• Barry Selby
• Clubhouse – Barry Selby
• Gene Keys
• HeartMath

About Barry Selby

I am your guide to help you heal your heart and love freely again.

Barry helps women move from heart-break grief to whole-hearted grace. He is a passionate champion for the divine feminine, helping strong successful women create balance in love, life and business.

He is dedicated to disrupting the codependent patterns people fall victim to, so they can thrive in life, and enjoy healthier relationships.

Barry is affectionately called the Love Doctor by his clients and friends, He is a bestselling author, a spiritual guide, a sought-after inspirational speaker, and a wise & compassionate relationship attraction expert.