Episode 79 - Maryanne Comaroto, Relationship Expert: Questions You Need to Ask Men

Transcript

Maryanne Comaroto: You going to say a prayer to the big fat mic?

Alissa Kriteman: You know what, are you a Leo, are you a fire sign? Are you an Aries?

Maryanne Comaroto: No, no and one more time…

Alissa Kriteman: Sag?

Maryanne Comaroto: No. She is so intuitive, I’m blown away.

Alissa Kriteman: Scorpio.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes.

Alissa Kriteman: I knew it, I knew it.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yay, I knew it. Don’t you love when people do that. Is your moan in Uranus? No. Well thank god. What a relief that is...

Alissa Kriteman: Your head is though.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah, your microphone is, that’s for sure. Hi Alissa.

Alissa Kriteman: Hello.

Maryanne Comaroto: How are you?

Alissa Kriteman: Great.

Maryanne Comaroto: Well lets do what I always do, even though you’re interviewing me. You’re going to have to get control of me, I’m not easy to control, but here’s something that everybody likes to do. So put your feet on the ground. And get grounded, lets get here so we can give everybody out there the best of what we’ve got, but if I’m not here I can’t give them anything, so…

Alissa Kriteman: I like that.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah, lets take an audible breath…

Alissa Kriteman: Okay.

Maryanne Comaroto: Which they can also see. That’s right, for those of you if there’s smoke coming out of my lungs, I did not inhale, okay? Just for the record.

Alissa Kriteman: It sounds like it.

Maryanne Comaroto: Okay, and drop your shoulders away from your ears. And just drop into your body, I’m going to drop into my body and see how present I can get so I can give you guys the best I have, and you ladies and gentlemen, and if you’re under 18 don’t try this at home. I can’t be responsible.

Alissa Kriteman: Not when you’re driving anyway.

Maryanne Comaroto: No, and not with a mic that looks like this for sure. Turn off the television now. Walk away from the big fat microphone.

Alissa Kriteman: Who needs TV when you have us….

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right.

Alissa Kriteman: I mean, come on.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right. So… Well I’m here almost all the way, I feel much more grounded. How ‘bout you?

Alissa Kriteman: I feel grounded. I just didn’t know if I was supposed to be grounded in my body or your body.

Maryanne Comaroto: No, not a good idea…

Alissa Kriteman: My body?

Maryanne Comaroto: Right, that’s a boundary. Are you familiar with boundaries? Alissa’s not familiar. First time on the planet…

Alissa Kriteman: We’re going to talk a lot about boundaries today.

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right. Boundaries are good, and that’s a really good question actually. A lot of us love to merge. A lot of us have the urge to merge, ‘cause it feels better. “Wow, my energy feels great, let me merge with yours and get a big buzz on, right?” So that’s pretty typical.

Alissa Kriteman: I like that. I like the differentiation, and I think having boundaries is really important, and I want to let listeners know who the heck we’re talking to, ‘cause even though we’re on your show doing a video…

Maryanne Comaroto: Oh that’s right. Yeah, right.

Alissa Kriteman: no one has any idea who you are…

Maryanne Comaroto: What about you?

Alissa Kriteman: Let me just say hi everyone…

Maryanne Comaroto: I’ll be quiet.

Alissa Kriteman: This is Alissa Kriteman, your host of Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex, and today we’re going to talk about what it takes to have a fantastic marriage with relationship expert Maryanne Comaroto. So, well we’ve kind of already started, so maybe we should just keep going, although I do want my listeners to know a little bit about who you are. Maryanne wrote a book called Skinny, Tan and Rich, yeah?

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah, it’s my first book.

Alissa Kriteman: We’re not talking about that today, but that sounds really fantastic. What is…

Maryanne Comaroto: It’s a great book.

Alissa Kriteman: What is that in a nutshell?

Maryanne Comaroto: Wow! It’s going to be a little bit bigger nut than normal, so lets go for the elevator answer I guess, which would be trying to fill your, trying to fill your blank. The idea of the book is when I get blank, everything will be okay.

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Maryanne Comaroto: And the insidious cycle, the insidious pursuit, the chase of happily ever after, right. So a lot of us think, “Gosh when I get skinnier, better looking, tanner, richer, whatever…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: then everything will be okay.”

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Maryanne Comaroto: So it’s a memoir about waking up from that story that’s pretty pervasive in our culture.

Alissa Kriteman: Absolutely.

Maryanne Comaroto: How’s my breath?

Alissa Kriteman: My breath is great. Your lips look great.

Maryanne Comaroto: ‘Cause we’re really close.

Alissa Kriteman: I’m right up in your grill.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes you are. You can actually measure the size of my pores. Wow! That’s good. Alright, so, yeah, so Skinny, Tan and Rich is available actually on my website, www.maryannelive.com. It’s a great fast read, but it takes you quickly to the heart of that conversation, which is all about being externally referenced, because my work is about being internally referenced, and how do we go from being externally referenced to being internally referenced and why bother, what’s the point of that?

Alissa Kriteman: And this is exactly what I want to talk about today. You know, it’s April, people are getting married, there’s all kinds of bridal magazines, you know, the bible out there, these ten ton books about everything you need to know about your marriage, but not a lot of people are talking about this internal journey into “Am I picking the right man?”

Maryanne Comaroto: Right, right.

Alissa Kriteman: “Do I even know who I am?” So this, these are the things I want to talk about today. So, couple other things. Clearly you’re a media personality and you have been doing workshops and speaking about women’s empowerment and these kind of things in your own experience about how you got to be such a powerful empowerment figure for women. And so you’re married and you have a son and you live her in beautiful Marin.

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right. I do.

Alissa Kriteman: So we’re going to get the details.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah, the details. Well actually I often times am asked, “How did you get in to doing what you’re doing?” And my reflex answer is always I’ve always done this. Since I was a kid, I started volunteering in a hospital when I was 18 years old working on a chemical dependency unit.

Alissa Kriteman: Wow!

Maryanne Comaroto: The thrill of being connected in terms of trying to invite folks to get on the path has always done it for me.

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Maryanne Comaroto: Big, big upshot from that, and the parallel journey of me being on my own path. When  a lot of kids were busy doing drugs, I was just getting off them and getting on to the real, the good stuff, right, the spiritual path. I just never looked back, and so for me service and being on a path go hand in hand.

Alissa Kriteman: Nice. You know, in your book, and what we’re going to talk about today is your new book, I think, you kind of have that positioned, see that positioned perfectly…

Maryanne Comaroto: You can’t see that on the radio show, but wow, nice legs, huh?

Alissa Kriteman: It says Hindsight: What You Need to Know Before You Drop Your Drawers.

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s my new book…

Alissa Kriteman: Love that, love that.

Maryanne Comaroto: And you need to have a copy.

Alissa Kriteman: And you will have a copy…

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes.

Alissa Kriteman: but we’ll talk about that later.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes we will.

Alissa Kriteman: So in your fantastic book you talk a lot about myth and fantasy, you know, these fantasy busters about what you talked about before about how we think that, you know, we’re going to have this fantastic marriage and it’s just going to come along and white picket fence and dinner parties and all of that without doing the internal work. So what was your big wake-up call? How did you realize that you were in some delusion of grandeur about marriage and how to have it work?

Maryanne Comaroto: Well looking back I don’t think that it was any one thing per se. I can tell you that it became progressively painful as time went on. Being on a spiritual path, collecting all kinds of tools that I would use, I would wake up temporarily, and then I’d go back to sleep. And that was something that became apparent to me in my early twenties. I had periods of grace, I guess you would call them, where I would go to a workshop or I’d read a book and I would, you know, sort of like being on a skateboard. You know, you’re cruising along and then I’d slam into a wall and go, “Where the heck did that wall come on, you know, from”, or actually an analogy I love to use is about the lady walking down the street who falls in a hole, do you, do you know that story?

Alissa Kriteman: I do. I’m an empowerment geek too.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right, right. So, right. So I’m on my little skateboard, I’ve just did a great book like Shakti Gawain’s Living In The Light in the 80’s, you know. And I’m all blissed out, and then I get into a relationship and bam, there I would be falling into the same pattern, different guy, same story. And this eluded me for so long because I kept thinking if I could fix the thing outside of me, that’s the part that I wasn’t getting…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: If I could get him to see how great I was, if I could get them to understand how valuable I was, if I could be what you wanted me to be somehow, then everything would be okay. I absolutely believed that and everything in my world reinforced that truth.

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Maryanne Comaroto: Every magazine, every television show, every movie, my parents, school, men and my girlfriends, my dog, everyone was a conspiracy for low self-esteem, right.

Alissa Kriteman: Really, so you woke up and you looked at your entire world, and you were like, “Wait a minute.”

Maryanne Comaroto: Every time I fell asleep I would say, “What am I not getting?”, and then I’d find another book or a workshop or I would sit and meditate, and I began to learn what self inquiry was before it was even a cool thing. I went to Yoga before anybody dared even go to Yoga. Only the fringiest of fringers went to Yoga way back when, that was so not cool. Because I, I knew something was going wrong. Then I’d get a little bit of traction, I’d roll along as we do, and I’d go, “Okay God, okay spirit, I’m good. I’ve got it, I’ve got it”, bam, into the next relationship. There I was again. Different face, same story.

Alissa Kriteman: Okay, so basically its been your lifelong journey and you’ve sort of woken up over time. So what are some keys that you can share with women who feel as though they aren’t living their fullest potential or they’re not in the relationship? Like they’re happy, but there’s a missing piece. Like, what’s the kerplunk?

Maryanne Comaroto: Okay, well two thins occur to me, that that story was not my main journey. It was my B plot, but it got so much press and so much airtime because I believed that if I figured that riddle out, the relationship riddle, then I’d actually live happily ever after…

Alissa Kriteman: Mmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: So here I was rolling along gathering information, thinking if I could just be better, more lovable, more perfect, sexier, prettier, smarter, whatever you wanted me to be… So here I am rolling down the road on the wrong path.

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: Nonetheless on a path. So it’s like all the things that I gather, I’m going to get to your question, all the things that I gathered, it wasn’t that they weren’t invaluable, I was just at the wrong game. It’s like having a football at a Frisbee competition, do you know what I mean…?

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: This is probably not a great idea, right? So I like got the wrong…

Alissa Kriteman: Inappropriate.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah, in the wrong arena…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: But lots of great tools, so then I would try to apply my football analogies with the Frisbee thrower guy, right, like, “Hey, how do you, what do you think about my feelings?”, and he’d go, “Who cares about your feelings”, and I’d think, “What is wrong? You know, the book I read just said to talk about your feelings.” Well, okay, lets talk about at what point this merges, because that’s what you asked me. I’m touching your shoulder…

Alissa Kriteman: I like it. It’s nice…

Maryanne Comaroto: I’m Italian.

Alissa Kriteman: Me too.

Maryanne Comaroto: I don’t know why, we like to touch. So…

Alissa Kriteman: Capiche?

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah, capiche, yeah (unintelligible, speaks Italian)… So actually at 33 years old what happened for me is something did shift. I crossed over a line, I had my own awakening before people even talked about awakenings, and I didn’t know what it was. I’ll tell you what I did know Alissa is that I had arrived at the top of some mountain, the happily ever after mountain, I had the guy… Right, the parenthetic, we’re making a parenthetic motion for all our listeners out there…

Alissa Kriteman: Ear bunnies.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right, right. I had arrived at the top of the happily ever after mountain. I had the guy, the diamonds, the cars, the real estate, my child, everything looked good on the outside, I was undefeated in my tennis division, blah, blah, blah. All of the outside things that I really thought once you achieve those you should be happy, and I wanted to die, and that’s not an exaggeration. I was worse than that. If I had the energy I might’ve taken my life. I was apathetic. I couldn’t feel my life. I was numb. I was so shut down in my heart, and here’s what happened for me, and you can probably relate to this some of you out there listening. My inside world was so disparate from my outside reality. The chasm was so big, like, like bigger than… Help me, I’m not a camper…

Alissa Kriteman: Donald Trump.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right, right, Donald Trump. No, nah, nah, nah.

Alissa Kriteman: That was before the interview.

Maryanne Comaroto: Bigger than the Grand Canyon…

Alissa Kriteman: Okay.

Maryanne Comaroto: Okay?

Alissa Kriteman: Mount Tam.

Maryanne Comaroto: Bigger than Mount Tam…

Alissa Kriteman: Mount Fuji…

Maryanne Comaroto: Fujiyama, right. Bigger than the Red Sea. The point is the disparity for me felt like I was never going to bridge that gap…

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Maryanne Comaroto: But that’s what was in front of me, and I knew intuitively, I knew deep down inside, because I had the fire. I knew if I just, and this is my advice, if you just keep trying, if you just keep pulling yourself back up and you keep showing up, as my mom always says, “Suit up and show up”, don’t give up five minutes before the miracle…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: Because most of us do, and that’s what happened for me. At 33 years old I said the first authentic prayer in my adult life. I didn’t want anything, I wasn’t bartering with God, I wasn’t trying to get a guy. I, this is a hilarious story; I can remember being 15 years old, being in love, and I would sit in my room, talk about hokey, and I was sitting in my room, not I would sit in my room, I was sitting in my room one night and the boyfriend was, liked some other girl and I wanted him to want me, you know the scenario. And I see this spider coming across my wall. And I say, “Oh, this is a sign from God”, this you know, arbitrary freakin’ spider, but I’m going to turn this into a sign from God at 15. And I say, “Okay God”, I think I might’ve been high even, I’m not sure, but…

Alissa Kriteman: Now we’re getting the full story.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right, but you know, I wanted to medicate. I did not like myself. I liked, I wanted… Again, when you’re not dialed into who you really are in source you do all kinds of things to harm yourself, but we don’t know we’re harming ourselves. It’s the distorted way we’re trying to actually heal ourselves. So anyway, I see this spider and I say, “Okay God, if this spider goes to the right it’s the right choice”, have you ever…

Alissa Kriteman: I’ve done that. “If it drops down, that means we’re going all the way with him.”

Maryanne Comaroto: Right? So for me that was real. And then if it moves in the other direction I would just tell myself another story, “Well he’s going to turn right” or “He’s turning left before he turns right.” You know, I, you would just try to twist your, your strong egoic desire, because my self-esteem was so low, into what I really wanted. So, okay, so back to at 33 there I was on my knees, saying the first authentic prayer, and that’s worthy of a pause, ladies and gentlemen. By authentic I mean not from my ego, and making that distinction by the way is the fulcrum of my work. Knowing who my persona is and who it is not, because when you don’t know who you are, you get more of what you go, which is unconscious loops. Jill Bolte Taylor talks about that, we just interviewed her on the show. Neural loops people, find out what they are and know what yours are. Lots of, you know, Young talks about the persona. There’s a way that you need to know who you are and who you’re not. Okay, so there I am at 33, thinking that who I am is this person outside that I’ve become when inside the disparity is so intense that I know something’s wrong and I’m dying from the pull, right, the split…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: I think some folks can relate to this…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: So being fake. Oh my god, you know, the fakeness, and you know that as soon as you’re found out… This is why by the way you can never have a real relationship in this place, because as soon as somebody finds out your game, it’s over, party’s over, and then you hate them for not seeing who you really are…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: Okay, so…

Alissa Kriteman: And then you hate yourself for not being who you really are…

Maryanne Comaroto: Right.

Alissa Kriteman: so nobody ever wins.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right. Well you already hate yourself…

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Maryanne Comaroto: probably, for the most part. Low self-esteem people, the self-loathing is so painful.

Alissa Kriteman: And I think the great point that you’re bringing up and probably getting to is that there is no going around doing the work, and this is what I’ve been sort of thinking about recently, you know…

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes.

Alissa Kriteman: like in my own relationship, I’m like, who, no one wants to talk about this work that we have to do, but you are, you’re saying the internal… So I want to talk after the break more about the real internal things that we can do…

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah.

Alissa Kriteman: when we find ourselves at that point, on our knees…

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right.

Alissa Kriteman: like, “Man I need some help.”

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right. And we’ll be back in just a minute. Don’t touch a, don’t touch that dial…

Alissa Kriteman: Don’t touch the dial.

Maryanne Comaroto: Don’t touch it, we’ll be back in just a minute talking about, this is not fast food ladies and gentlemen, it’s fine dining. Back in just a minute.

Alissa Kriteman: And we’re going to take a short break to support our sponsors. This is Alissa Kriteman. I’m talking with Maryanne Comaroto, and please just check out the sponsors for my show. They are fantastic, and they’re dropping down some great products for you, so if you can check them out I’d appreciate it. We’ll be right back.

Maryanne Comaroto: You are tuning in to Maryanne live and Alicia. No, that’s our girlfriend.

Alissa Kriteman: That’s what the Spanish, Spanish people cannot say my name. I don’t mind Alicia, because it’s, I think it’s kind of international and sexy…

Maryanne Comaroto: I think I like…

Alissa Kriteman: You can call me…

Maryanne Comaroto: Alicia better, but it’s okay, go on…

Alissa Kriteman: You can call me Alicia (unintelligible, Spanish speaking). Italian, Spanish, what else do you want?

Maryanne Comaroto: We got some (unintelligible, French)?

Alissa Kriteman: No.

Maryanne Comaroto: No? Okay. Before the break we were talking about… What?

Alissa Kriteman: Before the break we were talking about what women need to do, which is really do the work…

Maryanne Comaroto: Right. That’s right.

Alissa Kriteman: And focus inside…

Maryanne Comaroto: Right.

Alissa Kriteman: this external focus projection on, “How can I transform myself into a pretzel, to fit into this man’s world.” Never, ever works. And so you were talking about how…

Maryanne Comaroto: The wake-up call, what…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: First of all we talked about the wake-up call. My wake-up call was at 33. I said a prayer, “Show me the way”, and that was it, boom. I’ve never suffered a day since because for real prayer, and people have been doing studies on this all over the place now as you probably know, the power of prayer to the divine, mother/father divine, whatever you want to call it, is so amazing, a sincere prayer. Even the Dalai Lama’s talking about pure intentions, and my pure intention was I don’t want to suffer, I don’t know how to do it, I surrendered, show me the way great mother/father divine, and I did, and I’ve been on that path, which by the way is the other side of the chasm. So rather than looking outside of myself, I stopped and started to only inquire inside. So the first tool in my tool belt, by the way for anybody tuning in today, is self-love based on self-inquiry, the tool is the mirror. Until we are internally referenced, we suffer. The masters have said it forever, for 8 thousand years. This is not new information. But just like you were saying Alissa, many of us are so addicted to the fast food answer, we want seven days to find the one. The answer, by the way, is the one, it’s just the other one, this one, it’s you, it’s…

Alissa Kriteman: Can you tell she’s passionate?

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right, I am because we suffer…

Alissa Kriteman: No, I love it. I love it.

Maryanne Comaroto: You know, my book is filled with stories about women, one of whom was murdered as a result of her thinking that her love came from outside of herself. Do you know how many of our sisters we have lost…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: because they didn’t love themselves enough to ask certain questions, to have a practice of self-care and self-inquiry? If we don’t know how to take care of ourselves, and we’re, you know, going based on the rules that a lot of us in this culture grew up on, which is to please him, right, the alter to the fallice… I don’t know, I’m looking for a vagina shaped microphone. I think that’ll be the sign that we’ve actually evolved…

Alissa Kriteman: We could do it, we could just cut a little off.

Maryanne Comaroto: No problem. Not a problem, right?

Alissa Kriteman: This comes off. This little afro comes off…

Maryanne Comaroto: Big bowl shaped, with some hair on it, I don’t know. Okay, so moving on. The point you’re trying to make, or what I’m hearing you say is well what are we going to do about it? Okay, well waking up is part of what you do about it. Waking up from the happily ever after drug, right? It’s an absolute drug that most of us have, we’re hallucinating first of all. We really are. We’ve all bought into “when I get the guy, when I get whatever, everything’s going to be okay”…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: So waking up is key. Waking up, learning about who I am versus who I’m not, making the distinction between my false self and my real self. There’s tons of material out there right now. One of my programs thrive by the way, how to wake up and stay awake is something that I practice myself on a regular basis. The ‘show me’ method, it’s a practice of self-inquiry.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, lets talk about that…
Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah.

Alissa Kriteman: So you’ve developed a practice called Show Me, so tell me…

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right, ‘cause that was my prayer. I prayed, “Show me the way”, and what I was shown was to sit and drop into my own body, that there lied all the answers to everything, and everything I’ve ever wanted was already inside of me, which sounds like a cliché…

Alissa Kriteman: Well it’s all very Buddhist, you know. I mean that’s the whole practice of meditation, you know, letting your thoughts kind of rise and go. So you’re not talking about religion here…

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes and no. I would say that that’s one way to look at it. For me, I believe that the mind is here to serve our body so we can follow our spirit, so it’s not really about quieting the mind, ‘cause frankly I’ll take it a step further. Just because your mind tells you something doesn’t mean it’s true. And so quieting the mind is a practical tool…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: to have some quiet in the mind, but to access what I’m needing to know, belly brain know…

Alissa Kriteman: Okay…

Maryanne Comaroto: is a whole different conversation in my opinion…

Alissa Kriteman: Gotcha’…

Maryanne Comaroto: And I believe that wisdom is found in the body. A lot of folks will go outside of themselves to a psychiatrist or to their parents or to their friends to ask them, “What should I do in this situation”, for example, “Should I marry this guy?” Lets just bring it back to what we’re talking about…

Alissa Kriteman: Sure.

Maryanne Comaroto: Woman meets guy, right. They get some chemistry going, and then all of a sudden the mind, the reason, everything gets overridden because…

Alissa Kriteman: Chemical floods.

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right. And we don’t stop… I just wrote this today; women will spend more time deliberating over whether or not to buy a pair of shoes than they will on whether or not to have sex with a guy.

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: This is frightening to me…

Alissa Kriteman: There’s not chemicals in the shoe purchase.

Maryanne Comaroto: Well there’s, right, there’s some…

Alissa Kriteman: Less.

Maryanne Comaroto: There actually is, the shopping is an aphrodisiac. You’re right, there is less. But the consequences for having sex, for sharing our most sacred selves are so incredibly involved and complicated and can affect and perhaps end your life, yet we pause the least on that one conversation.

Alissa Kriteman: What is that? What drives that? Why are women so willing to have sex with a man, or a woman? Is it approval? What are we searching for when we don’t have strong boundaries around that?

Maryanne Comaroto: For me, I mean I have an answer, a psychological answer for that, but I’d rather drop deeper into, for example, what it was like for me.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: For me I was absolutely desperate for someone to love me. I didn’t even exist unless you acknowledged me. That is one of the most vulnerable places to look inside yourself and see what’s true for you.

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: So I grew up in a world that I actually, my greatest value was pleasing you. I was molested as a kid, beaten up, police reports on file, every possible scenario that a girl doesn’t want to be in. Primarily, not because as a child I put myself in those situations, but because I learned that however, whatever you need I am there to serve that, so I lost touch with my own intuition, my own desires, my own self. Now that’s an extreme example. The average woman may not have had a lot of those things happen, yet our culture reinforces that we need to please those outside of ourselves. So I would say fundamentally speaking it’s that, that we are wired, programmed to please other, creating a disparity between our intuition, our belly brain, and being programmed to be externally referenced. That’s what I’m talking about. We’re trying to invite gals back to the self.

Alissa Kriteman: Right. So basically what you’re saying is all of the stories and the way we’ve been conditioned, myself included, about that, you know, we’re going to take care of the home, and then women went into the workforce, and it’s like oh, well just add this other thing on, and that it’s actually glamorous to be working yourself to the bone, having no energy, spreading yourself so thin, like that’s actually glamorous and noble. And what you’re saying is no, that is not the way to go, that’s not the way to do it, that you actually have to take care of yourself and it’s okay to be selfish in that way.

Maryanne Comaroto: Well, right. Alissa, first of all, that’s not how we’re wired as women, and women are finding out unfortunately the hard way. Now I’m not going to start spouting medical statistics here, because people are going to look them up and we’re going to get all kinds of feedback, that’s now where we want to go…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: Suffice it to say, when we’re out of balance the body starts to deteriorate. We’re that stressed out and that dialed in to being externally referenced, women start to break down. Do you know how many women are on meds now?

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: It is the norm to be on anti-anxiety and anti-depressive medication. It is not the norm to be so over-stimulated and overloaded, so we’re seeking medication because we’re not listening to our bodies. We are already, we’ve got a built-in medical board directory, we don’t have to go to Google. Listen to your body, it will tell you exactly what we need, but we don’t…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah. Lets talk about that for a second, because you wrote in your book that you had some panic attacks and some real high stress anxiety. Was that because you weren’t, you were not looking at what you needed to get handled emotionally? Like what was going on?

Maryanne Comaroto: Well for me personally, when I had my first anxiety attack I was 18 years old, nobody knew what it was then. It was probably, if I would have been diagnosed it would be PTSD…

Alissa Kriteman: Okay…

Maryanne Comaroto: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was molested as a kid, a lot of ladies out there were. Nobody really talked about it then, particularly, you know, the family, the shame, the stigma that went along with that kind of about, people didn’t want to talk about. Now is a different story, and so ladies if you’re out there and this is true for you, you can go online, there’s tons of support, free support, people out there who can offer you all kinds of support for anxiety. Alissa, you have a whole series that you’re devoting to…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: getting over this anxiety and depression and so on. But for me, I did not learn how to honor my body’s messages. My body was screaming and terrified constantly, and there was no way that I learned how to comfort myself.

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Maryanne Comaroto: So what I did was medicate. As soon as I could at 14 get my, no 12, as soon as I could get my hands on something I medicated immediately.

Alissa Kriteman: And this is the point I want to make is that the symptoms and the, the reverberation of not being able to be in your body and deal what happened to you as a kid stayed with you relationship after relationship…

Maryanne Comaroto: Absolutely.

Alissa Kriteman: year after year…

Maryanne Comaroto: Absolutely.

Alissa Kriteman: and that’s the, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, and why? Because I feel like you’re a bridge. You’re a bridge to women to say, “You know what, it’s going to keep happening. We want to have these marriages, we want to have these lives, and if we don’t deal with the emotional…

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right, that’s right. Underpinnings…

Alissa Kriteman: the boiling water that’s there…

Maryanne Comaroto: Right, that’s right.

Alissa Kriteman: emotionally…

Maryanne Comaroto: Right. Well we’re addicted to the illusion of happily ever after, so what happens is, as I said, society, your family, everybody enforces the happily ever after. So we don’t have to talk about what’s really going on. This time it’s going to be different, right. That’s the little addiction that a lot of us gals have. It’s not that bad. It’s better than being alone. As soon as you start rationalizing…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: By the way, this is a sign that you are going down the wrong road, okay.

Alissa Kriteman: Rationalization.

Maryanne Comaroto: Rationalization. So what we do is we get addicted to happily ever after, and we’re not paying attention to the matrix, the fulcrum, the point as you talked about, what I call and actually in physics a system reorganizes itself to the highest available truth. Well pay attention because if your highest truth is you’re not lovable and you’re not enough, you’re only ever going to attract that. That’s why it’s so important in my work, I say, lets undo all of what’s fake, get to the core of what’s real, feel it, heal it, then when you can make the distinction between who you are and who you’re not, you can choose. But until then, ladies and gentleman, you will only always ever continue to repeat unconscious patterns. The verdict is in now. This is not anything that I’m making up…

Alissa Kriteman: It’s true. Exactly.

Maryanne Comaroto: And look at your life. One of the exercises in my book by the way, Hindsight: What You Need to Know Before You Drop Your Drawers, talks all about identifying your patterns. Wake up people, because you know what, “Tick, tick, tick” my mother said. You don’t get this time back…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: and if you want to keep telling yourself lies and trying to find, fix, you know, quick fix answers, seven days to finding the one or getting the, your soul mate, hey, yeah you might find your soul mate, but guess what, if you’re not ready for him you will destroy the relationship. You will absolutely drive that person away, make them beat you, hit you, whatever is, whatever love looks like for you, that’s what you’re going to do. Have you found that to be true for you?

Alissa Kriteman: Absolutely, and that’s why I want to be the, almost like the harbinger, you know, of doing the work because I was in a very destructive relationship, and I’m smart and good looking and all of these things, and it was like “What?” I couldn’t believe it, and that, that, like ten years ago I actually had to start looking at what am I missing…

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right.

Alissa Kriteman: kind of like you said…

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right.

Alissa Kriteman: like, until you, until you really address, “What am I missing here? How could I be with someone who disrespects me, tells me terrible things about myself?” I didn’t know that it was coming from me…

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right.

Alissa Kriteman: So, it’s like…

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s the thing that blows everybody’s mind. When I first did my workshops Alissa, I had to call them How To Find The Man, Get The Man, Keep The Man…

Alissa Kriteman: Just to get them in the door.

Maryanne Comaroto: Because nobody would come if I said, “Hey, come and learn to love yourself workshop”, I would be, me and myself and I would be at the workshop…

Alissa Kriteman: I would’ve been there with you.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right. Get the occasional person with, you know, some Birkenstocks would’ve been there and me, right, and we would’ve been…

Alissa Kriteman: What are Birkenstocks?

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s old school already…

Alissa Kriteman: Crocks…

Maryanne Comaroto: Crocks, whatever. So I did that, not to trick anyone, but I needed to speak in a language that we all really wanted to hear…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Maryanne Comaroto: “Tell me that I’m going to find the love of my life and he’s going to rescue me and take me away and buy me a big diamond ring and we’re going to live happily ever after.” Wake up. This is a lie, it is. If I could say one thing, slap yourself with a large blunt object. Wake up, ‘cause this is a lie that you’re telling yourself.

Alissa Kriteman: Cold water, something.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah, something.

Alissa Kriteman: Lets take a break. Lets take another deep breath, I like that.

Maryanne Comaroto: Lets take another deep breath.

Alissa Kriteman: Ground again, we could all…

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah.

Alissa Kriteman: We could all… You know, when it comes to like supporting our sisters and each other, it’s like you just want to get that out, you know, when you wake up and you realize, man, I’ve like had to claw myself out of that hole. It’s like don’t you just want to share…

Maryanne Comaroto: Oh yeah…

Alissa Kriteman: with your other sisters, like…

Maryanne Comaroto: Of course. I’ve spent my whole life doing it girl, that’s what it’s all about.

Alissa Kriteman: We’re going to take a break.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes we are.

Alissa Kriteman: I’m Alissa Kriteman.

Maryanne Comaroto: I’m Maryanne Comaroto.

Alissa Kriteman: We’ll be right back…

Maryanne Comaroto: Don’t touch that dial.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, don’t touch your iPod.

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right, and don’t touch your vag either, okay. ‘Cause we’re going to talk about that when we come back too.

Alissa Kriteman: Listen to the sponsors, okay?

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes, back in just a minute.

Alissa Kriteman: Okay. Okay.

Maryanne Comaroto: You can be, have the last word.

Alissa Kriteman: Welcome back. This is Alissa Kriteman, your host of Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex. Today I’m talking with Maryanne Comaroto, relationship expert, inspiration, guru, spiritual leader… What else are you?

Maryanne Comaroto: Relationship queen.

Alissa Kriteman: Sister friend.

Maryanne Comaroto: Self-esteem queen, how about that one?

Alissa Kriteman: I love it…

Maryanne Comaroto: I’m trying that one on…

Alissa Kriteman: Self-esteem, oh. So Maryanne, we’re out of time. So you know what, I’m going to have you back next week.

Maryanne Comaroto: Oh, I’m so glad. There’s so much to talk about.

Alissa Kriteman: There is so much to talk about. Tell our listeners how we can find you.

Maryanne Comaroto: www.maryannelive.com. We’re streaming live every Tuesday out there. Hi guys. Check us out. You can watch this program on our website, maryannelive, and I’m going to be giving away a Thrive CD by the way. If you want to learn how to self-inquire, you can get a hold of me there.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, well lets do this, lets have them send me an email…

Maryanne Comaroto: Perfect.

Alissa Kriteman: with their questions.

Maryanne Comaroto: Perfect.

Alissa Kriteman: And then I’ll come back, we’ll just keep talking to you forever. So listeners… I’m looking at the… Send me an email at alissa, a-l-i-s-s-a, @personallifemedia.com ([email protected]). What questions do you have for Maryanne Comaroto? There’s so much to talk to you about. In your book Hindsight: What We Need To Know Before We Drop Our Drawers you have so many fantastic tools. We talked about the mirror, we talked about being internally referenced. Give us one more before we go, and then we’ll have you back to talk more about sex, because I think that’s a really important topic and we just don’t have the time.

Maryanne Comaroto: Right. I like to talk about the flashlight, but we’ll do that next time. Here’s one pebble for your pond. I created something called ‘the consciousness agreement.’ Most of us are afraid to discuss our non-negotiables with people, and I think that’s something that’s absolutely critical to do, to know what is a non-negotiable for you, and then write it down. So many people are into pre-nup’s, I’m into what’s called a ‘consciousness contract’, something that you both agree to do so if the relationship ends up not going in the direction you want, you both leave intact or better off. Isn’t that exciting?

Alissa Kriteman: I love it, consciousness contract.

Maryanne Comaroto: Yes.

Alissa Kriteman: Know your negotiables, but also be willing and able to communicate them.

Maryanne Comaroto: That’s right. And have an out cause people. You do it for your business. Everybody knows how to build a successful business, but most people don’t take the time to learn relationship skills. Hey, the principles are similar, and success skills apply in every area of life, why not here.

Alissa Kriteman: That’s so funny, I know. We could go off on that. Alright…

Maryanne Comaroto: Yeah.

Alissa Kriteman: We’re going to have you back. This is…

Maryanne Comaroto: Great. Thanks for having me.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, thank you. I really, really, really appreciate you coming on and your time and your energy and all your amazing insight.

Maryanne Comaroto: Thank you.

Alissa Kriteman: We’ll get you back to talk about sex.

Maryanne Comaroto: Super. Oh yeah, I can’t wait for that.

Alissa Kriteman: Alright, that brings us to the end of the show. Thank you everyone for listening. For text and transcripts of this show and other shows on the Personal Life Media network, just visit our website at personallifemedia.com. I’m your host, Alissa Kriteman. Oh, there’s one thing I want to say; now you can get instant notification for when my shows go live. You can get it on a weekly digest or daily so you don’t miss one single gem of what’s happening here. Just go to personallifemedia.com/signup. This is Alissa Kriteman, your host of Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex. Tune in next week for more juicy news you can use.