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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
If you are in a relationship with someone who is not growing, looking at the power dynamics that were actually maybe unconsciously engaged in, which I call them codependent hooks, realizing that if you have to stop growing to accommodate someone, you're dying. Yeah. Like, that's you'll resent them and the relationship will implode.
Kate Northrup:Hi. Welcome to Plenty. I'm so excited on this episode to be on location in Los Angeles interviewing Mark Gross who is the founder, the creator of Create the Love. He is the co author of Liberated Love with his amazing wife. He has the Mark Gross podcast and he is a real truth teller about the nature of love, the nature of relationships, but really the nature of the human experience and how we can live more aligned, more deeply in integrity, and therefore, more alive.
Kate Northrup:So if you have been desiring more love in your life, plenty of love, then this is the episode for you. Enjoy. Welcome to Plenty. I'm your host, Kate Northrup. And together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every
[voiceover]:are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrop or anyone who works within the Kate Northrop brand.
Kate Northrup:Hi, Mark. Hi. Thanks for being here.
Mark Groves:I'm so excited to be here.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Okay. So I wanna know, because I don't know you that well, well, I've just been getting to know you in the last 24 hours, well, a little bit with voice memos before then, but, like, really, for real. Mhmm. What like, why is it that you were put on this earth, and maybe you don't believe this, but, like, to talk about love?
Kate Northrup:Like, you have a real gift with Thank you. Relationality. Relationality? I like it. Okay?
Mark Groves:Relating? It's a verb now.
Kate Northrup:At least talking about relating, and I have been relating to you in the last 24 hours. I think you're good at it. So why why you, like, what happened in your life that set you up for this to be your quest? Love. Quest love.
Mark Groves:I like it.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. You can do it.
Mark Groves:I, you know, I've always been really curious about the human experience, like, why we do what we do. I didn't know I was so like, that's not how I would've labeled it when I was young. But when I was, like, in grade 4 so, like, 10, 11, 12, You know how social structures start to be created in school. And so I watch a social structure being created and me not going up the social structure, and that caused me to have a lot of pain. I didn't know what was happening, but I experienced that I I was not feeling as much belonging.
Mark Groves:Then I found that I was, like, anesthetizing that with the introduction of sugar and I really, I didn't tell people what there was, like, not a not that my parents wouldn't have listened to me. I just it was like this internal process that I was going through and then in grade 8, I lost a bunch of weight, not in a healthy way. My grandma used to take SlimFast. Do you remember SlimFast? Oh, yeah.
Mark Groves:Yeah. And I remember learning about it, which, of course, it probably had high fructose corn syrup and all this shit. But it, like, expanded in your stomach or something and made you feel full. Okay. And here I am in grade 8 thinking about this.
Mark Groves:And thinking about how, like, I would self deprecate a lot. I didn't feel like I fit in. And my brother was really fit and he mountain biked a lot. So I that summer, I mountain biked a ton. I didn't really eat very much, and I would take my grandma SlimFast.
Mark Groves:I would, like, sneak it, which is crazy to think about. And then I lost a ton of weight, and I went back to the 1st day of school, and all of a sudden I got a ton of attention. And I remember thinking as I was getting that attention that I was still the same person and so there was, like, part of me was was feeling really sad about that. Yeah. And I started to I I had a grade nine relationship.
Mark Groves:This isn't gonna be like a story of my relational life, but I had a grade nine relationship that lasted a week Uh-huh. And she was great. I actually interviewed her on my podcast.
Kate Northrup:Oh, so fun.
Mark Groves:Yeah. I'm doing an ex girlfriend series.
Kate Northrup:Really? Oh, that's good.
Mark Groves:Because I feel like I've had the microphone this whole time, and they've never had a microphone. And so I'm like Great.
Kate Northrup:Whoever if they Whoever's willing?
Mark Groves:Yeah. Because I'm sure one of them, I'm like, she probably won't. But when I had a conversation with her, she's a great friend. She's married to a good friend of mine. And we were talking about it.
Mark Groves:And after we broke up after that week, which I was very much in love with her
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And, you know, I heard a friend of mine's kid when we were at a playground together, he the other kid he told a kid, a little girl, that he loved her at the playground, and they had just met. And the other parents said, oh, that's so cute. He thinks he loves her. And I was like, he doesn't think it. He does.
Mark Groves:Yeah. And isn't that so interesting that we, like, project that it must be after a certain time? And anyways, we we sort of judge love based on its time, but you can have fleeting experiences that are filled with incredible depth and incredible pain.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And that was that for me, Michelle. And I listened to End of the Road from Boys TO Men after that. Oh, that's a good one. Wow. I wanna fuck you up.
Mark Groves:It's a good thing Adele wasn't around. Oh, serious? Because it's Adele, man. She hello? Even though that was about her dad, that's still
Kate Northrup:Oh, really? I think so. Oh.
Mark Groves:I might be wrong, but I think it was.
Kate Northrup:That's good
Mark Groves:for all
Kate Northrup:of us with daddy issues.
Mark Groves:Right.
Kate Northrup:Right. I'll read it all.
Mark Groves:But after all that, I didn't talk to her for a year and a half. Wow. Because I just didn't know how. Were you
Kate Northrup:how big was your school? Small. So that was, like, an accomplishment to not
Mark Groves:Oh, yeah. Like, we would be in a circle with, like, 8 people, and I would just ignore her. And I looked back and I thought I had so little access to expressing my pain Yeah. That I just bottled it all up in the way that I communicated it to her by was by punishing her Yeah. Which she had the right to not want the relationship.
Mark Groves:And although I did feel misled and there was some validity to that. Yeah. I I kinda walled up a little bit and then had a girlfriend in high school who was great. And my we used to sit on the couch with my dad and talk about relationships. He would ask me questions about Wow.
Mark Groves:Yeah. We would very much, like, explore the human experience, still do.
Kate Northrup:Wow.
Mark Groves:And so I have very fond memories of that, but he would ask me about what I was doing, who I was being. And that really just, like, made me think about things differently. And I was in sales in after or after high school, I worked at a place called Future Shop which was like the Best Buy of Canada.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Mark Groves:But it was also like the 40 year old virgin. Have you ever seen that movie? Yes. Yeah. So we would, like, wear suits and sell extended warranties, and we were, like, heavily trained on on closes.
Mark Groves:Like, I learned I learned 9 closes. How to close people in 9 different ways in my first training and then so I was, like, super I loved learning how to manipulate human behavior And then I got a job in pharmaceutical sales which, I have since karmically been repairing that, but I learned so much doing that.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And I was obsessed with understanding that. And when I went through a breakup in my late twenties, and I'd say even in my earlier twenties before I dated a woman for 5 years, I was really interested in, like, reading books like The Game or, How to Get Anyone to Do Anything because I was so terrified of being heartbroken that I wanted to learn how to control every aspect of relationship I could and how to get a girl Right. How to avoid pain.
Kate Northrup:How to essentially avoid pain.
Mark Groves:Yeah. Right.
Kate Northrup:Turns
Mark Groves:out you can't. But Yeah. It turns out that's a facade. And no matter how many skills you learn to, present as having high self worth, you will always come back to who you truly are and so it's like in conflict, your low self worth will be evident, your lack of, healing things. So that's where it really began when I ended an engagement in my late twenties.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Mark Groves:And all of a sudden, all these, like, behaviors, all these protective I'd experienced betrayals in high school and in university from partners that I'd never really looked at. And I saw that I was running. I ran away from so many women who really wanted to love me, who were good. And I when I ended that engagement with a really great woman, I was like, how did I get here? How do I never get so disconnected from myself again?
Mark Groves:I felt like I hadn't been living my own life and yet of course I was. I was making decisions but they were like, what am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to be? What kind of job am I supposed to have? And it was really the first time I ever thought, who am I really?
Mark Groves:And I read the book Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I'll never forget where I was when I was reading it. And it was the first time I ever thought that I'm here for something else. And of course, as it happens, the pain that I had became my obsession to understand. And then as I was learning about relationships, I read, A History of Marriage by Stephanie Koons and I was like, oh my god.
Mark Groves:I've been lied to my whole life about marriage. I had no idea. I grew up Catholic. So I was like, oh, you get married by 27, you have kids by 30. Now that's probably all like had inflation too.
Mark Groves:So that's like 32 and 40 or something. And I was just like, holy shit, like, relationships end all the time. Why do they end? Why do some people stay together forever and love each other? And why do some people stay together forever and hate each other?
Mark Groves:And why do some people break up and others not? Like, what differentiates really good powerful lovers from ones who are not? Yeah. Because I wanted to be 1. And I think I always had a deep desire for great love, but it was more it was very naive when I was young.
Mark Groves:You know, I didn't my girlfriend was asking me the other day, like, we were talking about my ex girlfriend series. Oh. Right? And my wife, sorry. She was saying
Kate Northrup:Oh, I was like okay.
Mark Groves:I was I'm like I gotta side
Kate Northrup:circling back.
Mark Groves:I gotta side Are
Kate Northrup:we doing monogamy?
Mark Groves:Which is
Kate Northrup:also fine if you're
Mark Groves:not.
Kate Northrup:Because I actually am curious about your take on the monogamish movement. But anyway, we'll come back. Yeah. We can
Mark Groves:get to that. But you don't have a role. I do not. I just call her my girlfriend and my wife, which is by accident. But
Kate Northrup:And I like it.
Mark Groves:But, that way she gets to play many many roles. I'm I'm polyamorous with my wife.
Kate Northrup:Within one relationship. Highly, highly recommended.
Mark Groves:That's right.
Kate Northrup:Mike and I were actually saying the other day, like, how many marriages are in a marriage. Like, I am definitely not I am not the same person Mike married. He is not the same person I married. Right. Like, we are on a new marriage.
Kate Northrup:We're on at least our 3rd.
Mark Groves:Yeah. I mean, my my wife and I have been through a few iterations. Yeah. And now having a kid, I'd you know, a new iteration. Yeah.
Mark Groves:And, you know, it's already hard enough to manage one life, you know, to keep it on course. But to try to keep 2 together on course just requires, like, a deep level of communication and and that, like, I am committed to walking that path as best we can together. And if at any point she wants off that ride, that's her choice. And if I do, that's her choice. But I don't see that happening anytime soon because she's the best ride or die.
Mark Groves:That's awesome. You know, she's is it to find a human who's willing to do the work with you, that's all you need. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:You know? It's so true. It is so true. It's really common in my community, and I know in the communities of friends of mine who are in some in my similar industry. You know?
Kate Northrup:I guess we could, like, loosely call it women's empowerment, though I don't love that phrase. But, anyway, something comes up a lot Yeah. Which is I'm growing and doing all of this work, and my male partner is not. What, like and then women get afraid of outgrowing Yeah. Their partner.
Kate Northrup:And, it comes up a lot specifically in my community around, like, they're really healing their money stuff, they're really dissolving a lie of scarcity, and yet their husband is, like, deeply committed to 3 d reality of, like, it's just math, and the money's already been spent. Right. Like, you know, like, like, fear lacks scarcity. There's no such thing as manifesting. Like, energy is not real, which is just not true.
Kate Northrup:But, like, what would what do you what would you offer was, like, I answer them, but I'm also a woman. Right? And I I am married to somebody who is just as committed to his growth as I am. Like, there's no way it would have worked otherwise. So I'm not, like, the best person to help in that scenario because I'm like, I don't know.
Kate Northrup:My husband's growing all the time. So, like Right. Sorry. Maybe you married the wrong one. But that's not a helpful thing to say to people.
Kate Northrup:So
Mark Groves:It could be true.
Kate Northrup:Like, I don't know. It could be true. But, like, what's your insight of you know, it's a generalization. But what's your insight about that dynamic of the woman, like, doing the work and working on herself and healing her stuff and men not? And is there anything a woman can do in that situation to encourage, or should she just keep her eyes on her own paper?
Mark Groves:Lot of layers. The first one I'll say is that, you know, when the the greatest reason relationships fail is they fail to create really clear agreements at the beginning. So true. So, you know, when most of us enter partnership, we actually don't even know what an agreement is. We often don't even know what we really want or we're afraid to claim it.
Mark Groves:So a lot of people who got married and are now 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, they got married without really clear discernment Yeah. About what they were creating. They got married because they felt they were supposed to. Whoo. Bless.
Mark Groves:They got married because they felt that they were supposed to and it was the right thing to do and all that that's why it's, like, it's never the wrong person till there's the ownership that it's the wrong person. Because even if you marry quote unquote the wrong person, it is the opportunity to claim that truth. So you have to in order to actually know what right is. So this is like the beauty of contrast, you know, and so, like, everything that someone has that you don't want indicates what you do want, but most couples when they fight, the person actually leads with criticism, but behind every criticism is actually a desired behavior. So instead of you don't do this, it's like I'd actually really like this.
Mark Groves:And I think we often don't give this solution to the person because we want them to just get us, that we're already pretty complex and so to just have someone to to assume they get us is very different than that they're curious about getting us. And I think the other layer to this is that a lot of men, are still living in the perspective that they don't have to do anything in relationship. They've kind of inherited that from the patriarchal structure that the dad just got home and dinner was at the table and kids are to be seen and not heard.
Kate Northrup:He got to be grumpy because he made the money.
Mark Groves:Right. And and there's there's so much and and so I have so much compassion for men because I am one in that, like, we we were not necessarily empowered to we inherited that system and we can either try to benefit from that oppressive way of being, but then no one benefits. Like, men fail in patriarchal structures too because they're not actually seen. And so 70% of divorces are initiated by women. Yeah.
Mark Groves:And by the time a woman leaves, it's been about 2 years, but I think that would be true for any male or female. Yeah. So the efforts been made. So by the time she walks out the door, the door's got it's gone. It's done.
Mark Groves:So I wrote this article years ago that was called love her before she leaves you because this whole idea is like, yeah, I could write that to women, but really it's like, I'm actually gonna write to the 70% that are left. And that could be true. It's just like instead of getting defensive that I focused on men and that just read the article appropriate to your own experience. It doesn't fucking matter. But people just want me to validate that they have the right to their suffering, which you of course, you have the right to your suffering.
Mark Groves:I don't get to do that. So if you are in a relationship with someone and you're growing and you feel like you're outgrowing them, there's a few layers to this, which is the first one is that, you get to decide when is when does compromise become self abandonment? So, like, what is the line of time that you've negotiated with your soul that is the right amount of time and maybe you're way past it, that if they don't change by and and most people who don't change is so now their words are not matching their actions are not matching their words. And we'll often hear people say if if believe his actions, not his words. No.
Mark Groves:Anytime there's a mismatch, red flag. So if words don't match actions or actions don't match words, we have a mismatch. So that's integrity is gone. So people can't trust someone who says they're gonna do something and they don't do it. So rooted at the basis of the relationship is a lack of self trust.
Mark Groves:If I stay in a relationship with someone like that, I won't trust myself. And so, it starts to show up as anxiety and depression and then in in psychology might be called learned helplessness. That you get to this place where you just don't feel like anything can change but it's only because you've actually gotten into a functional freeze state. So now, of course, we're benefiting from that or else we wouldn't do it. And so we're probably avoiding conflict, probably avoiding the perspective that we feel like we might have failed because we correlate relational endings with failures.
Mark Groves:But they're not. And that's a reclamation
Kate Northrup:done as a disservice. Right.
Mark Groves:And that and women especially are taught that the sort of significance of their worth is holding the family system together. Now the other part that is just, like, maybe the deeper layer that lives at this this sort of codependent nature of a lot of old patriarchal structured relationships is that if I feel like I am emotionally more advanced and I'm growing and they're not, I'm starting to create a hierarchy Uh-huh. In the relationship. And so often what happens when we do that is we actually don't want to be met because to be met would be to be vulnerable.
Kate Northrup:A 100.
Mark Groves:Because I see this other side which is, like, men doing deep emotional work becoming actually incredibly emotionally fluent. And then, when a woman meets this man in this heteronormative sense is, like, like Totally. Because they're not in the driver's seat emotionally anymore. And they're being called forward Totally. When they used to be, like, you're never enough.
Mark Groves:You're always watching football. You're never doing this. And it's, like, how would you relate to someone if you related from health? Which is very different because what you'll see a lot in codependent relational dynamics is, like, one person will be sick, the other person will be healthy, the one person gets healthy and the other gets sick because they don't know how to relate to each other without someone having a need that needs to be solved. And often it's just one person who's always needing to be healed and the other person always suffering or always taking care of them.
Mark Groves:Because who am I if I don't have if you don't have something I need to fix, then you're gonna leave me.
Kate Northrup:Right. And
Mark Groves:You need to be me Right.
Kate Northrup:In order to feel worthy.
Mark Groves:And you need me to feel better. So you always have to have a problem that needs to be solved, and I always have to be solving a problem. Because who are we without these familiar roles
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Which, of course, comes back to family systems and childhood. Oh, wow. And so if you look at sort of traditionally based on evolution, the woman tends to be the one problem solving and the man tends to be the problem. Now, in my wife and I's one point o relationship, she was the problem and I was the problem solver, which actually I think at the core and I'll just finish on this. At the core of so many people, I was in relational work and in relational work.
Mark Groves:At the core of people in therapists, coaches, service providers, doctors, nurses, dietitians, name the thing you do to help resolve people. At the core of that is a survival strategy. Yep. So you developed a hyper vigilance, excellent skill. People come to you just by accident with their problems and they just come to you and share it all and you're fucking good at labeling it.
Mark Groves:And so when you start to monetize that, you actually don't liberate your clients till you real till you resolve the need to be needed by them. So all that to say, if you are in a relationship with someone who is not growing, looking at the power dynamics that were actually maybe unconsciously engaged in which I call them codependent hooks, also, realizing that if someone if you have to stop growing to accommodate someone, you're dying. Yeah. Like, that's you'll resent them and the relationship will implode. The last question which I think is really just a good one to ask is, if they actually changed everything, would you wanna be with them?
Mark Groves:A lot of the times the answer can be no.
Kate Northrup:And then that's that.
Mark Groves:Yeah. Because, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, if you're not bringing each other more alive, then your relationship is not in service of each of you.
Kate Northrup:Are your parents married?
Mark Groves:Yep.
Kate Northrup:Really? That's amazing. Where?
Mark Groves:50 years in January.
Kate Northrup:Are they happily married?
Mark Groves:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they got there, done it.
Kate Northrup:Everyone does. I mean, everyone's on on their journey. But But
Mark Groves:I'd say, like, if their son wasn't, deep in the world of relationship, they'd be considered objectively very happy. Cool. And they are. Cool. But yeah.
Mark Groves:I'm like the guy who's like, hey, I noticed this pattern with us. I'd like to resolve it. And they're like, here we go. Yep. Let's go, man.
Kate Northrup:You say that to them. Yeah. Because I don't They're just always bringing up stuff. Not always, but, like, when it's relevant.
Mark Groves:Initially, I was. Yeah. Because, you know, whenever you're deep in the work and then all of a sudden you're like, I gotta bring this shit forward if I can, if my family's safe to do that. Yeah. I resolved a money thing with my parents because when I was, like, I think in grade I was probably in grade 3.
Mark Groves:I was probably 8. And I asked for a Transformer
Kate Northrup:Uh-huh.
Mark Groves:For my birthday. And my parents got me a Gobot. Do you know Gobot?
Kate Northrup:Is that like
Mark Groves:the It's a fake ad.
Kate Northrup:Just the fake version. Okay.
Mark Groves:Yeah. It's like the Panasheba instead of a Panasonic. Okay. Yeah. And I was like, I remember being so disappointed because the GoBot was like, I don't know, $5 less.
Mark Groves:Uh-huh. Although, back then, the Yeah. $5. Totally. And we did not have money.
Mark Groves:We didn't have a lot of money. But I didn't that context mattered nothing to an 8 year old. You don't give a fuck. It was like, am I not enough for the Transformer? And I said to my mom, she was at this point, like, used to me clearing things.
Mark Groves:I was like, hey, I need to talk to you about something. She was like, okay. And I was like, hey, I just I know this sounds ridiculous, but I need to clear that when I wanted a transformer, you got me a go bot.
Kate Northrup:Uh-huh.
Mark Groves:And she was like, she's like, what? And so I, like, explained it. And she's kinda laughing and so is my dad, but they're both like, well, we're really sorry.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Like and I was like, great. Alright. Done. We're resolved.
Kate Northrup:Okay. So That was a
Mark Groves:long answer.
Kate Northrup:It was a great answer. Brought up a lot more questions. How important do you think it is for having a beautiful, healthy, loving relationship to actually be able to bring up stuff with our family of origin and clear it?
Mark Groves:Well, I think for a lot of people, the initial healing starts with, I mean, of course, it starts where it's safest.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:It should. Yeah. I mean, I've worked with clients where all of a sudden they're like, they've discovered something and they go right to the mother wound, you know. And I'm like, damn.
Kate Northrup:Write it in.
Mark Groves:Yeah. Those are the people because, you know, like, if you wanna change a belief, the fastest way to change a belief is to do its opposite. Yes. So you short circuit the belief. But, you know, if all of a sudden that is with the where the origin of the fracture is, that's where it can be hardest.
Mark Groves:And especially especially because wounds with parents are they're deep. I mean, we're talking survival, we're talking attunement and attachment. And so all that stuff can be resolved without them. You know, I I always like to say it's like closure doesn't require other people. Healing never requires other people because as soon as you think it does, then it rests on them.
Mark Groves:Yeah. You know? So if it's not safe to communicate with them Yeah. Then, you know, sometimes it's it's actually setting the boundary. I no longer want to be in communication with them.
Mark Groves:Like, I've worked with a few clients, like, one specifically who got a restraining order against her mother. You know, like, these are that's deep wound stuff. Like, that's that's like, okay. This I'm standing. I'm giving myself the safety that no one did for me.
Mark Groves:And that's the, like, the the parent parentify parenting oneself
Kate Northrup:Exactly.
Mark Groves:One's own inner child and becoming an adult. Yeah. You know? So I don't think it's imperative, but I do think if the space is there, you start to shift the family system. Because as you change relationally with your romantic partner or even really good friends because you'll have friends who trigger shit, you will have no choice but to orient to all human systems differently as the new version of you and the system either has to reorganize around you or exit the system.
Mark Groves:So, like, if you start to develop healthy healthy self expression with your partner, you can't then silence yourself with a parent. It just won't work because you have the awareness of the shifting. You can.
Kate Northrup:You can.
Mark Groves:Yeah. You can. You can.
Kate Northrup:I you know, I mean, I'm just we were talking last night at dinner and just super transparently, like, this is up for me Yeah. In my family of origin. Like, Mike and I taught you we were talking about that show, Nobody Wants This before. Right? And, like, how healing it is.
Kate Northrup:At least for me, it's, like, such a great example of a show where people just handle stuff in real time.
Mark Groves:Right.
Kate Northrup:It's like this is up in our relationship, and rather than, like, shove it under the rug, I'm just gonna tell you the truth. Right. What a freaking revolution. Right. Revelation.
Kate Northrup:So, you know, my marriage is like that, and I'm incredibly grateful. Same. I married an incredibly direct man. He just is like, boom. So I have gotten good at meeting him there.
Kate Northrup:And I'm so proud of myself because, like, something happens, and I'm like, boom, immediately in real time. So I've been practicing that. I didn't grow up in an environment like that, and I don't do that with my family. And I want to, but I don't. Right.
Kate Northrup:And it doesn't feel safe to do it. And, like, I'm gonna try anyway, so I'm just holding myself accountable by saying that out loud right now. But as I was hearing you speak earlier today at the event we were at around, if we are not bringing the totality of ourselves to every relationship, we are keeping others from the possibility of their totality relationship to us. And that is true, number 1. You know that.
Kate Northrup:Otherwise, you wouldn't say it.
Mark Groves:Fact checked. Valid. Valid.
Kate Northrup:Number 1. Number 2, it as someone who has a really well honed adaptive strategy of being a chameleon, it does feel very possible to be my full self in certain places and then be just like a part in other places. And so I'm curious, like
Mark Groves:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:Are there ever times when that actually is a healthy adaptive strategy to protect in an environment where it actually isn't safe to bring all of you?
Mark Groves:Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't develop if it wasn't imperative.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Right? Like, we develop those. It's always healthy to develop that in toxic relationships or places that aren't safe to self express. So it's it's the right adaptive strategy. It's can you consciously know that there are relationships you can create that create safety for one another and then participate in a relationship that doesn't honor that?
Mark Groves:Right? That's where we start to actually abandon our own integrity of our values because with the newfound awareness of what's possible and your relationship with your husband offers you the contrast. And so, as the awareness becomes more powerful and the body experiences this and then you go to these other experiences, the body is like, why are we tolerating this? So if my adaptive strategy in a more extreme sense, let's say I had a narcissistic abusive mother, and my adaptive strategy is to fawn to, like, people please and go into fawning and to actually, like, never disagree with her, anything like that, then that is the appropriate adaptive strategy. But at some point, the person who is that way needs to be confronted with their reality and it's our own healing work to do that, to at least protect ourselves from those relationships.
Mark Groves:So how do I possibly be in in engagement with someone like that with the awareness that health is available to me? Because in participating in it, I have to enroll in toxic relating.
Kate Northrup:Right. Because you said today, there is no such thing as you being in a relationship with a toxic person. If you are in a relationship with a toxic person, you also are being toxic.
Mark Groves:Yes. You have to be because the relate it's a toxic relationship. It's and you're in relationship with anything or anyone that's not you. And so just by participating now knowingly that you have to shrink to be in relationship with them or accommodate their eruptive unpredictable behavior, your nervous system continues to get triggered.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And then you look at, like, okay, you know, we were talking when I interviewed you for my podcast about how, like, the body actually doesn't know the difference between your narcissistic mother or your boss Yeah. Who's narcissistic and abusive and a tiger. So you look at it like, okay, well, this is just obvious once you know it, but it's like that means you're spilling lots of glucose Yeah. And Cortisol and likely if you're in relationship with them often, high constant circulating Cortisol. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:A lot of inflammation.
Mark Groves:Right. So you're creating insulin resistance. In the research, high conflict couples, people in high conflict relationships heal slower. So they gave people a wound on their arm and then they look at how long it takes them to heal and it takes them longer.
Kate Northrup:Makes so much sense.
Mark Groves:Right. Because the environment is not in a in a experience of homeostasis. So if you look at really though at why all of this matters is that if you're in a relationship to anything, you're always asking, is this safe and am I safe to be me? Mhmm. And if I'm not safe to be me, then and I don't protect and stand up for myself, then in my own body, I don't feel safe because I don't have access to my own voice.
Mark Groves:If I don't have access to my voice, that's gonna show up as anxiety.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Because anxiety is thought to be future oriented. Right? And depression is thought to be past oriented. But if you actually stay in an anxious state too long and never take action, you end up depressed. And if you look, if you don't have access to your voice, you can't steer your life.
Mark Groves:If you can't steer your life, then your life might just show up as you might believe in fate. But, you know, I always think, like, fate will never work for you if you're not working towards it. And you'll call it that. I think it's Carl Jung who says that, like, you'll just have your experiences over and over again, and you'll call it fate. Call
Kate Northrup:it fate. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the purpose of long term romantic relationship is other men procreation. Right?
Kate Northrup:Like, let's
Mark Groves:say that Other than making babies?
Kate Northrup:Right. Like, let's say, okay, biologically speaking, sure, we get together to make a baby. But, but, obviously, like, that's not always true. Many people choose not to have children, you know. Right.
Kate Northrup:Homosexual couples. So there's all the things. Right? So in modern society, like, what are we doing? Because they're hard.
Kate Northrup:Right? Like like
Mark Groves:Yeah. They're not they're not always fun.
Kate Northrup:It's like really like, they're so fun, the best ever. And, also, it's it's quite a bit of work, and I found being single easier in certain ways. Like, I was able to just carry on with my bullshit Right.
Mark Groves:Solo. Which is kinda nice.
Kate Northrup:Like, in my studio apartment, I Right. Carry on. So, yeah, like, what are we doing? What's the purpose of them?
Mark Groves:Well, it's I mean, sometimes being single is much easier. And isn't that sort of the
Kate Northrup:But I can't get the stuff off the tall shelf. No. So that's the issue. I'm not
Mark Groves:the key. You need one of those little pinchy hand extenders.
Kate Northrup:My husband for the height.
Mark Groves:That's yeah. You know, it's for me, my belief is that there's no more potent vehicle for transformation than a romantic relationship, because you're met constantly with the things that need to be resolved. And, you know, we were joking with someone else earlier who had mentioned that, like, oh, I pick someone who just happens to push all my buttons. And we're like, yeah, you need to have your buttons pushed so you could start to heal the button. And then the button's not there anymore or you're aware of it and the way you respond to the button just gets changed.
Mark Groves:So, you know, I always think of, like, behind every trigger is a moment is an opportunity for mastery. Because, like, in the trigger is a skill or behavior or both that you needed access to that you didn't have. And so you have a hyper vigilance around something.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And instead of spending your life avoiding it or get hitting the trigger and then having some sort of defensive behavior to try to protect from hurt, which also creates hurt, so you end up perpetually living in the wound. And most of us know this in our relationships. We fight about the same things. We're fighting about the wet towel on the bed, but it's not really about the wet towel. Right?
Mark Groves:It's about sometimes it is. But it's usually about, like, I don't feel like you hear me. Oh, yeah. I don't feel like I'm important to you. And usually that thing we don't feel like is a wound that we're familiar with from childhood.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And so it's like unconsciously we're trying to resolve these things. So I think the purpose of romantic relationship which, you know, I really, subscribe to the idea that the deeper the commitment, the more the healing. Because it bring it by design, it brings up the friction of 2 humans, especially 2 consciously intentional people facing one another saying, we're gonna bring up each other's stuff and then we're gonna love each other through it. And that to me, I don't know that there's anything more potent. At least I haven't confronted anything.
Mark Groves:I think psilocybin and Ayahuasca were great, but ultimately they were just vehicles. You know, I think of what Ram Dass says that, like, you believe that something is the path to what you experience from it, but really what it does is just awaken within you what is already there.
Kate Northrup:Yes.
Mark Groves:You know? And so I think our our partners do that. They just awaken. And sometimes, actually, the relationship dissolving is the gift.
Kate Northrup:Totally.
Mark Groves:Right? Yeah. Learning you can leave things and still love them.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And I think also, you know, to circle back to what you said before, like, even the idea that a relationship that ends is a failure is just a a lie. Right? Like, my parents were married for 24 years, and then they got divorced. And, like, I don't know that my dad has said this, but my mom has said, like, that was a that was a successful 24 year marriage.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And then it was I don't think at the time of the divorce, she felt that way. But, like, in retrospect time now. Right. Like, over time, there's been some digestion, and and, like, it doesn't mean that that ending invalidated the previous 24 years.
Kate Northrup:Right? And that and I think, that's really beautiful. So, okay, I wanna know what is your take on nonmonogamy? And, yeah, like, that's just actually the whole question. What are your thoughts?
Mark Groves:Well, I think the first is, there's a quote from the true no. You know, it's Christopher Ryan's book, Saxaton, which is like the Bible for polyamorous people.
Kate Northrup:Oh, okay.
Mark Groves:Yeah. He has a great it's a great book and he has a great podcast. He I don't know if he's still doing it, but it was called Tangentically Speaking. And, yeah, he's a real riot. And, in it, Neil Strauss has a quote where he says, you can find anyone I think it's something like you can find anyone to justify how you wanna love.
Mark Groves:And if I butchered any of that sorry, Neil. But that's essentially the message is like, just find people who love like you do, you know. And I think any relational structure when we start to position, like, this one is better than another one, then we're not able to be curious about the human motivations that lead. But I'll speak to my experience and then, like, when I ended my engagement at 27, I did not believe in marriage anymore. Because
Kate Northrup:of that experience or had you not believed in it to begin with?
Mark Groves:No. I did believe in it deeply till I ended my engagement, and it's because it all of a sudden didn't make sense to me. It didn't make sense to me. I went to this therapist the week I broke up with her. Went to this therapist because she's like, look, you need to talk to someone.
Mark Groves:Like, have you talked to someone? And I was like, okay. I owe that. So I called my, like, employee assistance program, which, of course, is the least motivated therapist you could find because they're getting paid, like, $42 to listen to your shit.
Kate Northrup:But sometimes just expressing it is therapeutic. Right?
Mark Groves:Yeah. Oh, this was great. I walk into this guy's office, and, you know, he says to me, what's your problem? Like, what's the thing happening?
Kate Northrup:What's your problem? Brain opening? Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Groves:I forget what you know, something like that. Like, what's what's coming up for
Kate Northrup:you? Sure.
Mark Groves:And I I said, you know, I'm in this conundrum. And he said, well, listen. 50% of the time, people who think they're marrying the right person are wrong. And when those people get remarried and they think they've figured it out, 70% of the time, they're wrong. And he's like and I was like, wow, this is a real motivational speech, you know.
Mark Groves:And then he said, when you came into this office, you already, like, had an idea. And he said, you know you better than you than anyone else. Sorry. And he said, if I was to put 2 options in a hat and I pulled one out, which one would you hope I was holding? And I was like, man, leave.
Mark Groves:And so I left there and ended the relationship. And that had me just being like, oh, like, relationships don't make sense. Like, marriage didn't make sense to me. I studied then the history of them, and I was like, oh, like, as Stephanie Coons says that marriage was ultimately designed to get more in laws.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Right. No. It's Right. Economic structure
Mark Groves:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:To build, power connections.
Mark Groves:Safety. Right? So, like, if you marry someone from the tribe next door, now you can share resources and you have more geography. And then when agriculture started, you started to have people who owned land and people who worked on land. So then you didn't people who own land didn't marry people who worked on land.
Mark Groves:So you started to create social structures and and, of course, those still exist today. Oh, yeah. And and so it was a way of of, like, maintaining social structure, power, all that kind of stuff and also trading, as you said, resources. So when I would thought about that, I was like, well, that's like just linearly makes real sense and, like, we never really married for love. We had affairs for love.
Mark Groves:I think Esther Perel talks about that. So I started to think like, well, then what the hell's the point? Like, I'll just hook up with lots of people and it'll be we'll call it a day. But I realized that I was chasing so much self worth in that and I was trying to control the depth of intimacy because, of course, what lives next to love is your pain. And so when you have quote unquote struggles with commitment, you really just don't trust yourself with commitment.
Mark Groves:You're not afraid of commitment. You're just afraid of where commitment leads. And so there's this real opportunity that to recognize that everything that is unresolved will show up as as the way you relate. So if you haven't resolved betrayals, you'll date unavailable people. You'll and really, if you date unavailable people, it means you're unavailable.
Kate Northrup:Right.
Mark Groves:Which that's a real hard truth for people to recognize. So, like, I could give 2 people Bumble and they would end up in the exact same geography, same apartment building, same geographic radius that they're choosing from, and they'd end up with different people because of what they code as green flags and red flags and orange flags. And and that's why it's like, it's not it's by design that we would choose to avoid something that we know is gonna lead to our suffering. So when someone says to me, I don't believe in marriage, I'm like, well, why? Well, because marriage leads to divorce.
Mark Groves:No investor would invest in something that right. That's a common sort of argument. I said, well, first off, just change the definition because how you're defining marriage is like if you and I I say the word tree, you might think of a Douglas fir and I'll think of a birch. It doesn't mean either of us are wrong. We're just so if I'm like, I don't like trees and you're thinking of a different kind of tree, we're just missing each other.
Mark Groves:And as I said at the beginning, it's like, it's not relationships fail because they failed to be clear about what their agreements are. Yeah. And so, if we're avoiding marriage, we're just avoiding a way of relating. So just create a different way of relating. So what I notice this what I will say is that there's probably as many successful monogamous relationships as there are polyamorous because both require an incredible amount of communication.
Mark Groves:Mhmm. And I've certainly met polyamorous people who are happy, who are thriving, who have deep communication. What I have noticed is that often, I'm gonna say often because I see it and I'd say it's true a lot, but not always, is that it's actually a way of avoiding it creates a safety net to depth. Right. And what you because
Kate Northrup:it's like a fine mist setting on the hose as opposed to the power spray Right. Of, like, if you get that intensity with one person, it brings up more versus, like, I'm just gonna spread it around. And if I'm starting to have stuff kick up over here, then I can go over there.
Mark Groves:Right. And and we have the cultural narrative that men are designed to spread their seed and women designed to now there's a truth that, like, women need and and after sex, women and men release oxytocin, but oxytocin last longer in women. And so they, by design, catch feelings because they're meant to bond with the person who might parent their child. Now, this is interesting not to go on a tangent, but because of things like the birth control pill, which was of course pitched to women as part of the feminist movement, much like the torches of freedom that women all of a sudden there here's this available market of female smokers. Let's just show these women who are libertarians smoking and now every woman will wanna smoke.
Mark Groves:The same thing is, like, here's a way to own Yeah. Your bodies and your sexuality. There's truth to that, of course. Yep. But also, it's pharma using marketing to, like, catch something which is really important.
Mark Groves:We're not I'm not dismissing that. But what it does is it changes the mating strategies
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Of men and women, but especially women.
Kate Northrup:It finally changes your physiology.
Mark Groves:Yeah. I mean I mean, that's the white t shirt study is really fascinating where where men were told to wear a shirt for for, I think, it's a day, and they don't wear deodorant, and then they put the shirt in a bag, and then the women smell the shirt, and they say, do they like the shirt or not, the guy? And when women were on the pill so naturally, the women who would say, oh, he smells like my ex boyfriend or something like that. What they saw was that the women that who were not on the birth control pill chose men who had opposite immune systems to them. And obviously, from an evolutionary perspective, Bratton's immunity and the offspring, etcetera.
Mark Groves:We still are biological beings everyone.
Kate Northrup:Animals. We're animals.
Mark Groves:Right? But women who are on the birth control pill picked at random. And and so it does change your mate selection, but all that to say is like, it actually increases the short term mating strategies. So like, one night stands, friends with benefits, all that kind of stuff. And that, the people who are more successful, the men who are more successful at short term mating strategies, narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, sadists are more successful at short term mating strategies.
Mark Groves:Jordan Peterson talks about this, but that of course makes sense cause they're generally more concerned about their rapport building, charisma, fitness, health. Right? So by design, they expose themselves to more of these types of men, which is really fascinating when you start to think about that. So long way around the barn is Terry Cole would say, that I think we often you'll see in a polyamorous relationship structure which can obviously look many different ways, but let's say where you have a primary and then you have some other people that you hook up with and you have agreements about that. What I'll often see is that the person leaves the primary to be monogamous with another person.
Mark Groves:So they open their relationship because they don't wanna leave and or they don't want to have that conversation, so they change the tier of the relationship. Often, they'll change the agreements of the relationship and you'll see the other person compromise and actually what you'll see is energetically the person compromising and abandoning what they truly desire, you can actually start to see them physiologically change. Anxious, they start to lose trust in themselves, they're abandoning themselves. Again, not always true, just sometimes true. And you'll see that one will leave for a monogamous relationship with another.
Mark Groves:So I think there's a lot of complexity to it. I don't think that one's more right than the other. In my experience, I believe that at least through the relational structures of being with someone who's open to growing together, you have a lot of opportunity to really move through the frictions of that. But I could see the argument being, hey, if you're gonna open up to being intimate with other people, you're gonna bring frictions forward too that are gonna Yeah. Precipitate growth.
Mark Groves:Yep. I just know for me, that's not my desire. Would I love to be able to just, like, hook up at random? Yeah. But is that an agreement that my would she probably love to?
Mark Groves:Yeah. That's like a reality of life. I don't I don't go like, oh, then she must not love me. It's like, no.
Kate Northrup:Well, I think that's really It's the human part. Yeah. That's the human part. You know, I think about every now and again, just like it's so funny. I was having dinner with a girlfriend of mine.
Kate Northrup:I haven't seen her in a few years. And she goes, I'm pretty sure last time we were together, you told me that your dream is to move to a commune so that you and Mike could open up your marriage and, like, be with other people. I was like, that was definitely somebody else. I definitely never said that. Because logistically speaking, like, when you have your work, kids, your marriage, taking care of yourself, taking care of your house, like, there's a lot going on in life already.
Kate Northrup:And Mike and I are really good about carving out the time for each other. But there are some weeks where we're just like ships passing in the night. We're like, oh, hey. Hello. I see you.
Kate Northrup:Right? Like, we really need to take the time to, like, be like, oh, hi. Yeah. Here we are. I cannot imagine the logistics of, like, adding in another Imagine?
Kate Northrup:Person or several. I just I don't have I
Mark Groves:love women. The logistical But, like, one is enough.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Yeah. I love
Kate Northrup:It's too much.
Mark Groves:And I really see the connection with Kylie and I as being sacred. Yeah. And it's like anything that threatens that sacredness, that threatens our safety
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:She is my number one priority relationally.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And so it's like, and my son.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. But like her first.
Mark Groves:I know. And it's like, I think of if she is not okay with something, that's the priority of the conversation first always. Yeah. Like, there's nothing she can bring to me that I'm gonna not it's mine it is like imperative to me that our relationship is honored and Yeah. And treated as sacred.
Mark Groves:Yeah. Because she's sacred. Women are sacred. They're portals. You guys are portals.
Mark Groves:Have we figured like, that's fucking crazy. You are the portal to this world. Isn't that wild? I am not. I am not directly.
Mark Groves:I'm a key Yeah. To the portal. Yeah. But I'm not the portal. And I think that's when we, like, repair our relationship with the feminine.
Mark Groves:Men repair their relationship with the feminine within themselves and, and with the masculine, of course. Yeah. But the Earth
Kate Northrup:I know.
Mark Groves:And then universe. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Thank you for that. I'm making a hard left.
Mark Groves:Hey, Juan. Let's go.
Kate Northrup:You left social media in Jan in July. Yep. You left Instagram.
Mark Groves:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:I know that that's, like, an ongoing conversation for you. So it's not like, oh, this is exactly how it is and whatever. But I am curious, like, what was the impetus for that for you? What has it been like ever since? What's your relationship with it like now as I know you are not the only one who toys with that idea and then not everyone does it.
Kate Northrup:I have a few friends who left and then came back, for a variety of reasons. One of them is because mushrooms told her to come back. So, you know, I mean, like, we all are on our journey, and I would stand by that direction any day. But Agree. Yeah.
Mark Groves:If the mushroom is telling you.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. No. It was a super clear Quite a
Mark Groves:great it
Kate Northrup:was a super clear directive. So why did you leave? How do you feel now? What's your relationship with it like today?
Mark Groves:You know, years ago, I had the feeling that I needed to leave, probably 3 years ago. And I now in hindsight, I could see it was really derived from this, like, needing to get off this treadmill of, like I started to look at my relationship more explicitly in about March, where I was like, okay, I have a lot of anxiety with social media, why do I I hire people to run it and then they get exhausted and it's not like I have an overtly psychologically exhausting account, like, I'm not talking about cloud seeding and shit, you know, although that's true. I I really started to look at why do I have a resentment to something that has been actually really beneficial to my life. Right. I met my wife on Instagram.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So I'm
Mark Groves:holding all these the complexity and so I start journaling on it and I'm like, okay, why do I resent it? Oh, I feel powerless. Why do I feel powerless? Well, no matter how much content you make, it's never enough. It's a black hole.
Mark Groves:The algorithm is always a mystery. You never know how it works. As soon as you think you got it figured out, they change it. They add dancy, pointy, fucking videos and, you know, they change the way it's oriented. So it went from being a follower, like, you got the stuff from people you followed first
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:To then they started to see the success that TikTok had. So I'm talking more specifically in context to Instagram, but anyone who had a Facebook account really early as a business know that the algorithm shifted in one day. People went from, like, 25% engagement to, like, 3. Yep. And Instagram has changed quite significantly since I started.
Mark Groves:And when I started, it was, like, 2013 ish, something like that. I think December of 2013. And it was a social media company started by some people who were like, hey, let's share pictures and engage with people. But then it got bought by a share held company that said, all that stuff's great, but how do we make money? Well, we make money by monetizing people's attention.
Mark Groves:So I started to look at, like, oh, okay. So I feel powerless. I feel like nothing's ever enough. I feel like it's always a mystery. They give you a bit of that virality.
Mark Groves:They take it away. If you are financially dependent on it in any way, if you say the wrong thing, take it take it all away. And I started to see the overlap of it being very similar to an abusive relationship dynamic. And I was like, oh, shit. Like, that was then I was interviewing Stephen Porges, the creator of Polyvagal Theory.
Kate Northrup:Oh.
Mark Groves:And he was saying, well, look, Mark, like, no one is designed to be criticized 24 hours a day. And I was thinking, like, oh, yeah. If you are an iron conversation around a group of people, around a fire in a tribe, and then we all go to bed, no one's at social risk anymore.
Kate Northrup:Right.
Mark Groves:But if you have a profile that represents you and your thoughts and your feelings or your business or whatever and you don't have to be a business. You just if you have a social media profile, what I'm saying is true. But if you have a business or like a brand based on you or just what you love or whatever, this is amplified. So now, 24 hours a day, you're available to be criticized and to have your belonging. Exile is awaiting you at any possible time, a comment section going off, whatever it is.
Mark Groves:And so I started to see that, like, in the research on dates when people have a phone face down on the table, they're less vulnerable because there's another world calling to them that they're always thinking about. The phones in their pockets, same thing. So I started to think like, oh, we are like constantly being pulled by this world. And so, of course, we're anxious because there's a surveying, a vigilance Mhmm. That is happening.
Mark Groves:And at any moment, we could lose everything. And then, Steven Porter said to me, not only that, but you have a nonhuman entity that is judging you at all times the value of what you're creating. And is it where Which
Kate Northrup:is the algorithm.
Mark Groves:Yeah. And he's like, but in a relationship, if you were in a relationship with someone where you were feeling used or abused or whatever, you would have a conversation with them and the relationship would change or you'd end the relationship. But he said, in your relationship to Instagram is not relational. Right. Because if you try to contact because he you know, I was like, yeah, there's no customer service.
Mark Groves:No. And if they know that there are people suffering from these platforms, but they're not gonna do anything about it because, one, it would be admitting that they know, which I know now through leaked documents, they know.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:But I just started to see, like, oh, like, I don't know that I'm capable of being in a relationship with this thing based on what I've experienced. And I don't know even if I hire someone to do it, am I just hiring them to date an abusive person? So I left in July. I was gonna delete it, but then I got, like, thousands of messages being like, hey. Can you just leave it up?
Mark Groves:Love your work.
Kate Northrup:People can go back
Mark Groves:and read that stuff. Yeah. And I mean, I had 11 years of writing on there.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So It is an archive of a body of work. Right.
Mark Groves:And it's crazy to think that I don't own any of that. I could download it all, of course, but, like, I don't own any of the one point total, like, 1,300,000 followers I built on the 2 platforms. I don't have access to any of them. So I built a business in someone else's business, which that's not good for your nervous system. Nope.
Mark Groves:And I was also tired of this, like, launch, don't launch, launch, don't it was just, like, very disregulating. There's no, like, residual safety in that model. And so, yeah, I was like, alright, I'm just gonna leave. And when I left, I moved more to, YouTube. And the reason I like YouTube is YouTube pays you for your content.
Kate Northrup:Right.
Mark Groves:No. It's not. You're not living off it at the rate I am I'm get yeah. Some people though
Kate Northrup:a beast it.
Mark Groves:Are fucking crushing it, But people can live off of it. And what I like about that model is there's a, like, a reciprocal relationship of, like, thank you for your contribution. Yep. We make money from what you create, so we value what you create. That's not true on these other models and that's why I don't think they have a lot of longevity.
Mark Groves:But all that to say, when you start to curate how you create content for the algorithm, the algorithm is shaping what art looks like And then you start to shape what art is, so you you actually step out of your authentic self expression.
Kate Northrup:It's not art anymore.
Mark Groves:Not that you can't work with an algorithm, of course, and not that, cons like, a 140 characters on Twitter force people to write differently. Right?
Kate Northrup:Yes. It's a great mental exercise.
Mark Groves:Videos shortens your delivery. It can make you better at communication. So there's Absolutely. Value to these things, but it's shortening attention span.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm. Like, videos Change your brain,
Mark Groves:for sure. Right. And I just started to think, like, well, we have the greatest mental health crisis we've ever had. There's more anxiety and depression than we've ever seen. It's not a fucking mystery why this is true, and we have to be in choice in relationship to these things.
Mark Groves:So since leaving, I've just really discovered that. Like, oh, I needed to leave to know that if I ever reenter relationship with it, it's by choice. I could leave.
Kate Northrup:And you need agreements.
Mark Groves:But before I did exactly. And and I need, like, layers of nervous system informed
Kate Northrup:A 100 ways of layers. Like, you'd really need to create, you know, a a system or a manifesto or, like, a way to do it that was in fact safe.
Mark Groves:And for everybody who uses it on my team. Yeah. Because Well, I think that's what I feel.
Kate Northrup:Really key because we were talking, you know, on on your show about now, obviously, like, I've used my account in a very different way. It's much smaller. It has not been nearly as essential to my revenue, and I've never had a full time social media person. Like, we use an agency. They make the content.
Kate Northrup:I'm responsible for the commenting. The end, bada bing, bada boom, we're done. Like, it's very simple. But that piece around, like, oh, now I'm paying someone to be in an addictive relationship with this thing, like, that's dark. Right?
Mark Groves:Right.
Kate Northrup:So I just really you know, I love that you're in this deeper inquiry. I I think all of us listening, like, need to be asking those questions on a continual basis about everything in our life, whether it's Instagram, alcohol. Right? Because you say you have this great thing that you say, I've heard you say it twice, about yeses and noes, which is a private you know.
Mark Groves:Hear me up. I'm ready for this. That if you don't have access to a no, your yes isn't authentic.
Kate Northrup:Yes.
Mark Groves:It comes with small print.
Kate Northrup:Right. And is it really a yes if you don't have access to the no? The truth is no. Right.
Mark Groves:It isn't. It isn't. And that's codependency. It's coercion. It's whatever.
Mark Groves:So any Manipulation. It's self abandonment.
Kate Northrup:Yes.
Mark Groves:But either way, you're not in an authentic true like, if I say yes to a partnership with Kylie, but I don't have access to say no to the relationship, then our relationship is not based on Right. Truth. Right. It's based on a prison. Yeah.
Mark Groves:And that's what most often relationships are based on. I can't leave. Right. Or you can't leave
Kate Northrup:Or I think I can't leave.
Mark Groves:Then are you staying. Right. And either way, then that means I'm staying out of duress even though it's by choice. But that lack of access to discernment is really the that there needs to be some form of I wanna say trauma, but there's, like, access to choice and there's that saying that the opposite of trauma is choice.
Kate Northrup:Yes. You know? It is.
Mark Groves:So it's like, if you're choosing something, that means you could choose not it. Right. You know? And that recognition is important. But and I also say to people, like, it's better to say no to a yes than yes to a no.
Kate Northrup:Wait. Okay. It's better to say no to a yes than yes to a no. Yes. Totally.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Because a no to a yes teaches you what a yes is. A yes to a no puts your life in a different place
Kate Northrup:Right.
Mark Groves:Where you don't wanna be.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:1 at least serves you in the direction of where you wanna go, and the other one actually just keeps you not in that space. And we can feel the heaviness of that.
Kate Northrup:That's a good one.
Mark Groves:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:That's a good one. This has been so great. Thank you so much. I I do wanna ask you a million more things. So we'll just have to have you come back
Mark Groves:Love it. Another time.
Kate Northrup:Okay. So one final thought, question, which is, like, what is one thing
Mark Groves:One thing.
Kate Northrup:One thing that each of us can do to nurture love in our lives on a daily basis, to make our lives more loving?
Mark Groves:Well, I think it's all about rituals. You know, that idea of what is self love, what is loving oneself, is thought to be like, oh, it's like bubble baths and chocolate and those are definitely great. But it's really to love oneself is to love one's choices and if you don't like your choices, you won't like who you are. And so the way you build those practices is by, like, what do you do when you wake up? And I've really learned more the value of this since having a child because It's everything.
Mark Groves:Man, I thought I had a lot of I realized how much time I had before.
Kate Northrup:Like, what were we even doing? I thought I was so busy.
Mark Groves:I know.
Kate Northrup:I have no idea what I did in my life up until the age of 34 when I became a mom.
Mark Groves:I'm I'm 45.
Kate Northrup:Just frittering away.
Mark Groves:I don't know what I did. I created content.
Kate Northrup:I did that.
Mark Groves:Yeah. But I really started to implement the practices of waking up, looking at the sun
Kate Northrup:Yes.
Mark Groves:Putting my feet on the earth. Yes. If I can, working out if there's, like, access to that, which there usually is. I like I prioritize that. I prioritize getting up before my wife and my son so I can do all these things because as soon as
Kate Northrup:Which is a bold move when you have a toddler. I mean, that's early. Oh,
Mark Groves:yeah. It is. It is. I've I've become a morning person. Discipline.
Mark Groves:But it's like the time if I don't do it, I'm I resent that I haven't done it. I resent them. Yeah. Because now they're up and I can't do my things.
Kate Northrup:Right.
Mark Groves:And, you know, my wife is great
Kate Northrup:about it. Resenting you for being awake.
Mark Groves:Right. Right. It's so ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And I tell my
Kate Northrup:because we've been there at our house.
Mark Groves:Well, my wife is great. Because if I'm, like, working out and he gets up earlier Right. She's, like, how many more sets do you have? Yeah. You know?
Mark Groves:Great. And then if I can cold plunge. Yeah. Because for me, cold plunging is about what it builds the awareness that your body is saying you're gonna die and you're not.
Kate Northrup:You're not. It's the best nervous system. Like, it's such a good tool. Not so great. Just if you're listening and you're female and you've suffered from adrenal fatigue, not so awesome.
Mark Groves:Yeah. I could see that.
Kate Northrup:However, so good for increasing our capacity to be with discomfort while also learning to feel safe there.
Mark Groves:I always think, like, you can do hard things.
Kate Northrup:You could
Mark Groves:do hard things. And I do, like, 3 minutes at 44 degrees, and I'm like Yeah. I'm gonna die.
Kate Northrup:Oh, yeah.
Mark Groves:And I'm just like, woah. And when I get out, I'm just like, holy life saving. And I'm proud of myself, and it's, like, the beginning of my day. And I've already gotten everything. It's kinda like I was I would be chasing those things if I don't do them 1st in the morning.
Kate Northrup:Downhill from there. Yeah. Where does coffee fit in? Do you drink coffee? Yes.
Kate Northrup:At what point in the morning routine? I make it right now with that. Addict.
Mark Groves:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Where do you
Mark Groves:when do you do heroin?
Kate Northrup:I'm only addicted to coffee. It's my one addiction.
Mark Groves:Same, actually. But all other vices. I actually now put in, half or a third caffeine
Kate Northrup:Uh-huh.
Mark Groves:Caffeine. I just put both beans in. Weaning. That is that's how I do it all the time now because my wife wants caffeine and I could go decaf it. It doesn't really matter to me.
Mark Groves:But I don't drink enough that it's, like, too much. Yeah. So right away in the morning, I make a coffee.
Kate Northrup:And you have it right then?
Mark Groves:Yeah. I like bringing it into the
Kate Northrup:Now I'm just, like, into the minute details of your morning. No.
Mark Groves:I bring it in the gym with me.
Kate Northrup:And you kinda like sip?
Mark Groves:I tend to fast till about Yeah. Noon or 1. Yep. Almost every day, I do a 24 hour fast once a week.
Kate Northrup:Yep. Nice.
Mark Groves:I'm gonna do a 5 day.
Kate Northrup:Cool.
Mark Groves:After November 5th 16th, I'm gonna do a 5 day.
Kate Northrup:Amazing. You're gonna feel bionic. Yeah. Yeah. I'm interested
Mark Groves:to see how it impacts, like, a one c, glucose, cholesterol, all the metabolic stuff because I'm just so fascinated by all of it.
Kate Northrup:It's so odd.
Mark Groves:I can't believe I spent my life thinking like, oh, what happens if I'm like, no. Do everything that prevents everything. Like, why not just become so fit that it's that if anything happens to me, that's certain that's just life.
Kate Northrup:Well, yeah, you would share might
Mark Groves:as well do everything I can.
Kate Northrup:You had shared yesterday that, becoming a dad was your impetus to, like, get in the best shape of your life, which is very unusual. Most people just completely let themselves Yeah. I I even hate to say the phrase let themselves go. But that, like, health is not always the biggest priority. I mean, when I had my baby, my first one, I was, like, eating potato chips in the middle of the night nursing
Mark Groves:Right.
Kate Northrup:Because I just was hanging on by a thread For sure. Which is fine. I have great compassion, for myself. It's fine. But it's cool that you did that.
Kate Northrup:And, like, why did you do that?
Mark Groves:Well, I had a friend who was like, oh, you're gonna get dad bod. And I was like, oh, that's and I was reading about how, like, someone had sent me how dad bod was a normal response to having a kid because your estrogen levels go higher and
Kate Northrup:your
Mark Groves:testosterone drops Yeah. Which if you're co sleeping is makes you more attuned Sure. Which is really fascinating.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So that you're not rolling over on your baby.
Mark Groves:Right. Yeah. Exactly. Well, you're like
Kate Northrup:or the body.
Mark Groves:And you know what's so fast exactly. And what's so fascinating about, like, co sleeping parents, but especially mothers, is that when the baby starts to come out of deep sleep, the mother starts to come out of deep sleep. So they're communicating on this whole other fucking 5 d
Kate Northrup:It is amazing.
Mark Groves:When I see my wife's relationship with our son, and I'm just like, oh my god. I can't believe you changed the consistency of your milk for what he needs. Like, you are amazing. You're a miracle.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:And it's just like, my mind is always being shattered by these, like, the the amount of wiring that occurs with mother child. Yeah. And my friend Mark Wallen said to me I was like, yeah. The dad, like, really important role. And he's like, yeah.
Mark Groves:And I was like, wait, what? And he was like, well, the dad is important. He said, but the mother prepares the neuro architecture of the child for the world. And then the father takes the child into the world.
Kate Northrup:That's beautiful.
Mark Groves:And that's so great. Mark Wolland wrote It Didn't Start With You.
Kate Northrup:Oh, yes.
Mark Groves:Why It's Not Your Fault, which is an incredible book. He's an incredible teacher. And I was just like, oh, that's so fat. Now that, of course, there's different relationship dynamics and single moms and single dads and
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Mark Groves:Listen, a lot of people get really reactive to all that. It's just like in an ideal world, which actually is why I think, like, the family system and its ideal is like, there's no it's not like people who are apart and love each other are worse than people who are together and love each other. People who are together and don't like each other, and people who are apart and don't like each other are both highly dysfunctional to child development. But, you know, my friend said this to me, you're gonna get dead bod, and I was like, oh, this is interesting. I'm learning about this.
Mark Groves:I was like, what happens if I totally flip that shit and I get in the fittest shape of my life because of the love for my son? Yeah. So then I was like, what would that mean? So I started double down on all the things and
Kate Northrup:So cool.
Mark Groves:Honestly, I feel better than I've
Kate Northrup:Well ever felt. How much better is parenting because you are cultivating your own internal energy reserves? I mean, eating potato chips in the middle of the night was, like, not the most optimal choice. Oh my god. I would eat, like, a bag a day.
Mark Groves:Miss Vicky's salt and dinner? Get out of here.
Kate Northrup:No. I did like that. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
Mark Groves:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Luckily, it was great fuel for all the breast milk. Yeah. That's fine. But I love that. I love that.
Kate Northrup:It's inspiring. It's it turn flips things on its head. So beautiful. Where should people come and find you? I know you have an amazing book called Liberated Love that you wrote with your amazing wife, so they should get that for sure.
Kate Northrup:You have a Substack. Yes. Where else?
Mark Groves:I have a Substack where I just write 4 articles a month that are about different Just parts of the human experience and all over the map. And I have a podcast, Mark Groves podcast, and have a YouTube channel where I dive into some subjects more in a longer form. And then my insta I do have an Instagram for my podcast called Mark Rose Podcast. Great. And I have a membership called Aligned, and you can find all of it, markrose.com.
Mark Groves:The membership is markrose.com/line. That's where all my courses are and a community of, like, incredible people, all looking to use the frictions of their life to get
Kate Northrup:Aligned. Nothing better. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening to this episode of Plenti.
Kate Northrup:If you enjoyed it, make sure you subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review. That's one of the best ways that you can ensure to spread the abundance of plenty with others. You can even text it to a friend and tell them to listen in. And if you want even more support to expand your abundance, head over to katenorthrop.com forward slash breakthroughs where you can grab my free money breakthrough guide that details the biggest money breakthroughs from some of the top earning women I know, plus a mini lesson accompanying it with my own biggest money breakthroughs and a nervous system healing tool for you to expand your abundance. Again, that's over at kate northrup.comforward/ breakthroughs.
Kate Northrup:See you next time.