Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 0:00
You know, and like a lot of how I work, and I'm sure a lot of how other type attachment types work, especially nines, is you send out this ping that is indirect, but it is an honest location, and then if it's not pinged back, it's taken as rejection, and you're just like, okay, that doesn't have a place in the atmosphere. So I will not bring it out.
Josh Lavine 0:20
Welcome to another episode of what it's like to be you. I'm Josh Lavine, your host today. My guest is Alexandra Arroyo Acevedo. She is a social self. Pres 91963, try fix. So Bermuda, nine with a 154, overlay. First of all, people in our community know who Alexandra is. She is one of the CO hosts now on the big hormone Enneagram podcast. She is John La COVID, his partner, and she has undergone a radical revolution of selfhood that until this point, I don't think we've really explored outside of the context of she moved from one relationship to another. What I love about this conversation is it contextualizes that move in a in the bigger frame of Alexandra's entire life story. And what this conversation really is is Alexander just telling her life story from the point of view of being a triple attachment social nine. So what it was like for Alexandra in previous phases of life, to basically live from a place of passive acceptance of whatever would come into her world, and a sense of playing it safe or looking for the thing that would be safe, that would that would feel safe, and living from a place of muted and suppressed selfhood, one of the things That Alexander's life story is such a good representation of is the central question of attachment, which is, am I living the life that's really mine? Am I really being myself? And as we learn from Alexandra's telling she wasn't really being herself, and she has been in the process of discovering and excavating and now protecting the newly consolidated sense of self that she has found so and, and this is a big one, is the we also talk a lot about how she's still in process with that. So there was obviously this massive revolution of selfhood. She broke up with her ex. She moved from Florida to New York in with John, and she now has a new place in a new community that was pre given, and she's undergoing the process of discovering what is actually hers and what is not hers. So if you're a triple attachment type and you're listening to this, I imagine you'll find a lot that you relate to in this conversation. I have learned so much about my own patterns as a triple attachment type through Alexandra's characterization of her patterns. And I just have to say, I mean, point blank, Alexandra is brilliant. She is She has this beautiful, scientific, self reflective, psychologically minded way of processing the world, and she there's a certain precision in poetry with her articulation of what she discovers inside herself. And you can also see her, she's now publishing YouTube videos of really, really good analysis of reality TV, like the bachelorette from the point of view of the anagram, and her insights are just like really pinpoint precision. So this conversation is incredibly rich and vivid, and Alexander's life story is just such a such a beautiful example of what happens when a triple attachment type starts to really honor the question, Who am I really and what, what is the life that I would like to live, and stopping just simply passively accepting whatever comes into my world and begin the process of choosing what is mine and what is not mine. So with that, I have a plug also that Alexandra and I are going to be teaching a class about attachment. We are doing an attachment type support group. It starts August 22 which is just in a couple of weeks, or maybe even days from the date of this release. And it will be eight Tuesdays in a row at 6:30pm Eastern. If you are a core attachment type, meaning if your core type is three, six or nine, then you are invited to join. So this is a no hexad space. You're allowed to have hexad fixes. But if your core type is an attachment type 369, then we would love to have you. We're going to be talking about what are the psychological mechanisms that cause us to betray or abandon ourselves, and what it takes to come back home. We're going to be supporting each other in that. There's going to be a lot of sharing. It's not going to be as pedagogical or teacherly of a course. There's not going to be that much lecture. It really is a support group style class, so please check that out. There's more information on the enneagramschool.com and we look forward to hopefully seeing you there. Okay, one final thing to set up this interview. Alexandra and I have been trying to schedule this interview for a while, and we actually did round one of it a few months ago. But if. It was lost because the internet connection severed about 45 minutes into it. It's very sad for everybody, for me anyway. So we talk a little bit about the place that Alexander was in during that interview, and the way that she showed up in that interview, a little more clammy, a little more frozen. And there was a thawing process which, if we had captured it, would have represented or shown or demonstrated a certain aspect of nine, social nine. But the fact that Alexander and I are now closer friends, we have a lot more comfort and ease. This conversation flowed a lot more. And to me, it represents how social nine naturally emerges into your moves to three when there is a kind of social holding in which they can feel comfortable. So yeah, the contrast was interesting. We kind of explored that a little bit, but I wanted to give you a sense of where that exploration comes from, because without context, it would have been a little confusing. So without further ado, here is my friend Alexandra. So the energy already in this conversation is different from our first interview. I it's really a it's kind of a bummer that we don't have that footage. I know it was lost to the universe, but to the ether. Yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 6:18
yeah. I mean, you to be honest, there's a way I'm grateful for it too, because I don't know if that I don't know if that I could handle cringing at myself that hard. But
Josh Lavine 6:25
do you remember? Do you remember what happened
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 6:29
with the with losing the video or, no, just what was going on with me? Yeah? For you, yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of it was not being able to locate myself fast enough. There was the camera, there was the there was the knowledge that this is going to be seen by a wider audience. So I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to be this like completed package right away. And then on top of that, like you and I weren't necessarily super familiar with ourselves, with each other. We had hung out a few times, but like, our personal relationship to each other wasn't necessarily developed. It was kind of a we both know John thing. So I felt like you knew me in the phrasing. How do I say this? You knew me through John's presentation of me versus me, and so I felt like I had to upkeep that presentation versus just show you who I am.
Josh Lavine 7:25
Well, okay, that's interesting because I actually my, my side of the story is a little different. Because, okay, I felt like I kind of knew you. I mean, I didn't know you nearly as well as I know you now, but like, I'd hung out with you before, yeah, at least, like, a number of times, like, more than more than actually, yeah, more than, no, more than that.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 7:53
No, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, more than more than just, like, twice or something.
Josh Lavine 7:56
And we had, we had, like, pre interview conversations, we had a number. We had a few of those that were one on ones. So we'd actually, we logged like, a lot of time together,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 8:06
yeah, yeah. We had, yeah. We had, yeah, that's what I mean, reciting
Josh Lavine 8:10
things one on one, yeah, that's right. So I felt like I had a sense of, kind of who you are, but, but your framing of it is interesting to me, because you've you felt like and this, maybe we just go here because you felt like I was seeing you through John's eyes. And there's a certain way that I mean, that has triple attachment, social nine kind of
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 8:33
written all over it. All over it, yeah, yeah. And that's I feel like that's important to I feel like that's important to emphasize, because I recognize now in hind it's interesting to hear you say that actually, because it's like I knew that but forgot at the same time, I recognize now that I was just projecting that all over you. So I think what was going on for me, really was that I didn't have my my sense that you knew me for me. Yeah. Does that make sense? Like I thought you would, you just knew me through John, and so I was having to locate myself in a different way. It was this weird kind of inception. Thing was like, okay, Josh wants to interview me, but he knows me through John, and so I need to be me through John, and then add all the pressure of like the cameras and the cameras and the audience, and the whatever, whatever, and the having to locate myself in real time. And it was just struggling, yeah,
Josh Lavine 9:27
yeah. So I wish we can't play clip because it's gone, but there was a there was there was this process of, like, camera on, and then all of a sudden you, you were in a frozen state? You froze, yeah? And we talked about, yeah. We talked for about 45 minutes, and I kept lobbing questions at you, and then there was a, there was a thawing, but it was, it was very slow, right? Was a, it was a very slow melting. And then we didn't and then the. And then it stopped, because the internet cut
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 10:01
out. So, yeah, the universe saved me.
Josh Lavine 10:03
I know. So what's different now?
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 10:09
Um, well, I mean, especially now knowing that you were in a different place than I was projecting onto you, I think I was. I think I'm just in a different place, I feel like, and there's some social stuff definitely wrapped up in into this, but I feel like my relationship and my friendship with you has become more grounded. There's a certain social regulation that, I think, like we have with each other now that is grounding for me, as opposed to you just being like a blank thing that I'm supposed to perform to, yeah, yeah. And then on top of that, this is kind of going back with what I said earlier, but I just have a felt sense that your expectation of me is just me. I think you know what I think it is, is like I at this point, I have experienced myself being myself in front of you. So now I believe that you know who I am, because I've been able to, like, be in that state in front of you, and so now I think your expectations of me are accurate, as opposed to a performance. There it is. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's insane. And it's this thing where, like, I know that I'm putting it's this weird, like, pressure math that I put on myself that no one else is putting on me, but it's still something I have to, like a jungle gym, I have to go through.
Josh Lavine 11:31
Yeah, and actually, I do it too, and I don't know that I would, I would take, I would articulate it in a very similar way, actually, and I'm trying to, I'm trying to call an experience to mine. Anyway, the point is is, yeah, there's, there's a way that it's like, it's like, this person that I'm now talking to only knows a certain dimension of me, according to me, and for me to reveal the rest of me, that whole process of revealing the rest of me is usually a tiptoe process, you know, it's like a little more. And is this still? Am I still? I still feel safe? Does this person still like what? You know, am I feeling seen, held, appreciate whatever, and then a little further, and then a little further. And eventually there's like the full, the full blossoming of the flower that is me and and, and then once that's there, and then the person is, like with me there. And then it feels safe. Then it then it feels safe. You know what I mean? So I guess So from your point of view, you hadn't kind of tiptoed, you hadn't fully revealed yourself, and so there was still, it's just amazing how that is its own, like internal box, you know, sort of us assert upon yourself, or that we assert upon ourselves, and maybe this is a specifically social Bermuda thing. Yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 13:07
I think so, I think so there's, I'm gonna totally mess this up, but I know there's some like physics function or something, something like that, that I don't know if it's law or whatever it is, but it suggests that when attention is put on something, the quality of it changes. And that's how I feel a lot of the time. Oh, yeah,
Josh Lavine 13:27
I love this. Yeah.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 13:29
I can't remember what it's called. Somebody will know, but another way of phrasing it. And I think maybe one of the differences between you and I, because I absolutely can imagine you're relating to me on this. And I think within, from a nine perspective, what I have to the process that I have to go go through in order to unfold in front of someone is I have to get in contact with my unself consciousness, or, like, I have to realize that I have been in like, playful, unselfconscious states, and then I put together like, Oh, I've been witnessed in that state, as opposed to a sort of careful, intentional unfolding. It's more, you know, like this past weekend, even yesterday, when you and I hung out, was that yesterday? Yeah, two days ago, whatever, yeah, when you and I hung out, you said something about witnessing me just being myself. And it's one of those moments where I have to, like, look back and realize, oh, yeah, people have already seen me be myself without me realizing that I was doing that, you know, because I don't want to perform my selfness, because in certain ways, I don't know what that is. I have to be unself conscious in order to just be that.
Josh Lavine 14:40
Boom, yeah.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 14:42
So confusing. I know. I know I know, yeah, yeah. Someone told me Yeah. Someone told me a while ago that it would be helpful for me to track my states of UN self consciousness, and that just seems like the key for me and. A lot of ways to, just, like, reveal who I am. It's, it's more, I don't know, maybe this is nine ish two, but it's like, my revealing, even my revealing has to be passive. Yeah, we'll see.
Josh Lavine 15:11
Yeah. Well, yeah. We talked about, I've told you all the stories from this. I was a participant in a dating coaching program, and this, it's a whole thing, and I'm not going to go into the whole thing, but yeah, I went out. I went out with a group of guys, and there was a dating coach who would tell us to go talk to girls, and then he would give us food deck. And for it was a month long program, and it was actually life changing for me, because it forced me to access that state of playful unself consciousness before I even entered in an interaction, and so and so for me, it was just reps of of being that, being in that state, and accessing that state, when it was psychologically, the last place that I would ever go, except, except being pushed, you know, other than being pushed by this guy. So that's why it was life changing, because I accessed a state of freedom of expression that I that I knew was in me, but that I never could tap into unless I was in like, like, the last time I remember being in that state was when I was, like, a president of my acapella group in college, and I was just goofy, silly and absolutely free because, because I knew, I knew that the adoration of my peers was, was like, certain Yeah, right,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 16:31
totally, yeah. So it's funny that I it's funny. I can relate to you on that because I was vice president of my choir when I was in high school, and it was a similar thing. I was just like, I know this environment. I'm comfortable in this environment. People know me in this state. So yeah, yeah. Now I can just, like, hang out and play and right, not put all this pressure on myself to like, perform to a certain degree, or to make sure that everybody's being comfortable, or to make sure I'm in alignment with other people. It's just whatever. It's free
Josh Lavine 17:00
for all. I Yeah, so, um, yeah, where my mind's going is, I kind of, I'm like, I want to geek out about how that is. You could kind of categorize that in the context of, like, the body holding and the social holding environment, and then the three, like the layer of gaze, and then I'm curious about the mental center, how that plays into this, but I kind of feel like that would get boring if we went there. So let's not okay, let's um, let's um. I want to know about the I feel like now, at this moment, I'm meeting you like we're, you know, we we have revealed ourselves to each other, and we are now friends, you know, and we feel safe, and so and then, and here we are, and and that's been a journey. And I'm curious, from your point of view, contextualizing that in a broader sense, your story is a nine, and I'm thinking in particular about like you could trace it all the way back to your life with your ex fiance, and then moving to New York, and then moving in literally immediately with John, and then entering basically his world and discovering yourself in relation to all the things that are quote, unquote His, but then discovering what's actually yours, what's your choice, what's choosing you, and coming into like, an independent relationship with the things that were in his world, and also things that are outside of his world, that are yours.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 18:35
Yeah, yeah, man, okay, well, I'll disclaim at the top that that is still, I'm still in process with that, so I can't give any I can't these are not going to be answers with, like, neat little bows on top of them. But yeah, it has been a, has been a whole story. And okay, so taking your starting place, I'll actually go a little before that. So before I moved to New York, it was operating. I would say there were like different stages of nineness that I was operating off of, and a lot of them had to do with my relationships, both romantic and and platonic friendships, I guess. Let's see. And a lot of how I was operating was with the passive acceptance of whatever just floated into my environment. There were certain standards I had, there were certain filters that I put in place, but a lot of the it was, it was like the inactive choosing process was just not a part of the equation before I moved here. And so what happened was I would be in college, for example, and it was just the friends that adopted me were the friends that I would spend my time with. And maybe we had something in common. Maybe I just maybe it was just like a comfort that developed, but it was not an active choosing. And similarly, with relationship. It was just, you know, sort of the passive acceptance of what was in my environment and what I already found myself comfortable with, not necessarily activated by, okay, so then, yeah, I get into a relationship with my, my last relationship. And let's see, how do I put this? It was just, it was fine, like, was, you know, was
Josh Lavine 20:25
that a thing that just sort of chose you and that you passively accepted in the way that you were just describing, yeah, yes, for sure, yes, your world, and you just all of a sudden barnacle onto it. And that was that exactly
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 20:37
that, yes, in fact. Like, part of that story was when him and I initially met, my impulse was to actually say no, and I said no, and then there was more pursuit in my direction. And I was like, Okay, well, this is a nice person. This is he's, like, showing a lot of interest. Who am I to say no? You know, like, there's a lot of really met, like, a lot of a lot of how I've navigated has been I have seen the absence of red flags as green flags, as opposed to actually seeing green flags or actually feeling pulled or moved towards something. A lot of my navigation was just like, if there's no danger present, then that must be good, because there's fucking danger everywhere. So yeah, that was that was that relationship, just an absence of red flags. So I was like, Okay, let's do this. Sorry, just real quick.
Josh Lavine 21:26
What? What's danger?
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 21:30
Um, any kind of signs of deceit, or like I'm going to be played with, or like I'm not going to be taken seriously? Um, I was really, I was really careful about, I mean, to put it in plain terms, like, just like, fuck boy energy was just like the biggest red flag to me. So anybody that emoted even a little bit of that, or anything, any like, little hint of that, that I picked up on was just an immediate No, you know. And part, part of this comes from, like, my my history with my parents getting divorced and stuff like that. So that was, like, the main, the main navigational tool that I was using was just evading any kind of danger. Does that make sense?
Josh Lavine 22:16
It does, yeah. Well, no, it's just a, really, that's a loaded term danger, yes, and it's, and it's, and you're interpreting it through the lens of social nine, and what is dangerous anyway, and also not just social nine, but your entire life context and what informs that for you and your PTSD from various experiences, whether it's parents divorce or I know, You've had experiences with friends that have kind of betrayed you and said, like, so that that there's a lot of, there's a lot packed into that word danger,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 22:46
yeah, yeah, it was, I mean, a different way of putting it too, is I just didn't want to be I didn't want any sudden changes. Like I was really looking for something stable and something I could really rely on, and something that really wouldn't cause a lot of ripples, which is just so nine, yeah, but yeah, that's, that's a lot of it too. So like an unexpected change in direction. No not happening at all. How am I supposed to reorient myself with, like, sudden change? Oh,
Josh Lavine 23:21
and I'm sorry to drag this on, but is that also, is that a relic from or is that like your felt sense impression of like the divorce that was a sudden seismic change, tectonic kind of earthquake?
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 23:34
Yes, I don't think I would have ever thought of that until just now. But absolutely so for context, my mom is a nine, my dad is a six, my sister's a nine, I'm a nine. We're very attachment family. We're all sexual, blind, so like, the status quo is very is like, that's what we hang on to, that's where we can chill. And yes, my parents suddenly splitting up, like, changed the whole, the entire environment. And I mean, the four of us individually had, like, really explosive differences, not with each other, but just like our just the water we were swimming in was suddenly taking us in different directions, and we were having to orient in different ways. And there was just no normal anymore. And so it seems like since that point, we've been like, trying to find our own individuated normals, all four of us. So yeah, that was a good connection. I did not connect that myself. So yes, that was definitely part of the my decision making.
Josh Lavine 24:35
Okay,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 24:38
okay. Where am I in the story,
Josh Lavine 24:40
so we're now talking about you said this. Your was
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 24:46
safe, yeah, yes, yes. And that's just that's not a good enough reason to move forward with something. But that was good enough for me at the time. So we were together and. And, you know, whatever novelty, whatever new kind of, like, I don't know, feeling of hopefulness that faded really fast, like, really quickly. However, the feeling of safety was still there. And so I found myself being kind of internally conflicted, because in on one end, there was this lack of, there was this lack of what I perceived as emotional intimacy and like, inability to affect each other in a way that would be renewing. But then, on the other hand, it was like, Yeah. On the other end, it was like, this is a good person. I'm not just going to fling myself back out into the world where I see stories where everybody's, you know, cheating on this person and this person's backstabbing this person, and there's just like chaos everywhere. So yeah, I hung on, let's see we get engaged just too soon. He's a seven. I think he just, like, jumped into it too soon. And I passively accepted that as well. And I remember even in that moment, I was just not I was just not sure, like, I was just like, I didn't
Josh Lavine 26:09
go ahead, yeah. Will you tell can you? Can you paint that moment? That's such a moment? Yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 26:14
yeah, yeah, um, yeah. Well, by this point, like I said earlier, I had already felt whatever hopefulness I felt in the beginning was already fading, whatever, whatever purpose that we had been brought to each other, I feel like was already it was like whatever happened was supposed to happen already, and now we're kind of just like hanging on to something we're not supposed To be hanging on to. And so yes, I remember we got engaged really fast. It was very impulsive. It was not planned out. He asked me to be with him, and I remember even feeling in the moment that he doesn't know what he's asking. He doesn't know what he's he doesn't like understand the gravity of what he's asking. But I said yes, on the hopes that we could get on the same page, on the hopes that I could feel that his page was the same as mine. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hang on. I'm trying to Yeah.
Josh Lavine 27:19
Yeah. That so that, the hope is that it's like you, you said yes to the possibility that you could one day be on the same page, correct? Yes, which is, that's a really interesting, I mean, from the point of view attachment. I mean, that is exactly yes. That is, that is attachment. That's a really interesting framing, very good framing of attachment, right? It's like, that's what attachment is doing. It's like,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 27:47
it's negotiating, basically. It's like, yeah, hoping that I can shape shift to get the result I want. That's right?
Josh Lavine 27:53
It's holding on to that hope that, like, if I can meet you over here, and then maybe that means you can meet me over here too. There's that, there's a hopefulness about it,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 28:05
yeah, and a determination, in my experience, like
Josh Lavine 28:08
there's a serious yeah determination, I was just gonna say, but there's, but fundamentally, the hopefulness is, is actually, it's like it's created by, or it's triggered by, sparked by the unconscious, knowing that whatever this is is not the same page. Yes, yes. And then the attachment strategy gets activated, gets activated, yeah? And that becomes your entire ego agenda,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 28:38
yes, yeah, totally to make to make it better, even
Josh Lavine 28:42
though it's not right, yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 28:43
yeah. Million percent, yeah. Million percent, yeah. I mean, I remember what was happening there too. Was, I was, God, it was such a split, such a split experience, because on one end I heard the question and knew the possibility of what that could mean. Like, oh, I'm being committed to right now. That's what a person wants. You know, that's what I want. But on the other hand, I don't know that we're on the same page of what commitment means, you know, of what the like duty behind that is, what the expectations behind that is so, yeah, so the attachment activated was like, Well, I'm getting the commitment, so I will work with that, and we will negotiate everything as we go. I will, I'll see if I can carry us to like, the the frequency and like the like, the certain, yeah, the certain emotional frequency that I need us to be at in order to, like, actually move forward, but this is a placeholder that's good for now.
Josh Lavine 29:47
Yeah, I have a question. So all of this feeling was contained in a felt sense in the moment when you said yes, right? And I. Yeah, I'm wondering if that relationship was a place where you could have a conversation like this, like in other words, you know, my experience of you is that you are so insightful about your own patterns, and you have such really good language and precision and a kind of creativity, like a, it's like a poetry that comes out of you when you describe your attachment patterns. And it's kind of like art and scientist kind of getting in there with, like, it's just very, it's very like, yeah, unveiling, unveiling the spider web that is under Yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 30:43
yeah, yeah. And it's funny. It does feel very scientisty, yeah,
Josh Lavine 30:48
and, and that's something I don't know. I did you have a place for that before you were in kind of this social group that you are now in with the
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 30:59
Enneagram? No, no, no, no. I can maybe identify one friend that I had when I was still in Florida that was able to give me that. And she and I had a really, we had a really heartfelt connection, because it was like, we could be, you know that that image of that guy from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where he's, like doing the whole conspiracy thing, and he looks kind of deranged. Oh yeah. I like being in that energy. I like being in that, like, activated, like, wacky inventor, scientist thing, and she was the one person in in Tampa, where I lived before, that could engage me in that way. But no, my relationship didn't. Had no space for that, right? Because I thought it was, and I mean, in certain ways. It's possible that I didn't even try because I perceive that as like. I don't know. I had preconceptions that being in that state was like, too fringe is too strong a word. It's just too strong a word, but it's like, too activated, or too like, too much. Somehow there, I'm sure I could find like, the right adjective. But I had a predisposed judgment on that state of being, that I can't be that active because it's like, I don't know, annoying, frustrating, too much boring. Was a lot of the judgment, you know, a lot of my attempts towards even being in this state with like, friends was to see eyes glass over. So it was like, Okay, no, that's a no. That's my attempt. The attempt says no,
Josh Lavine 32:27
so that's, I mean, not to be whatever textbook or pedagogical, but like, that's that that right? There is social mind, right? That's the, that's the tamping down of your own life energy, yeah, to preserve the social harmony that is the current state, yep, and the current state can't bear myself, my disruption, yeah, yeah, yeah, the disruption that is just me speaking up and revealing myself and being who I am, yeah, yeah, which is why nine needs to go to three, right? As we were kind of talking about that the other day anyway, so, yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 33:04
um, yeah, yeah. I mean, so yeah, so there's there. I did not have really space for that in that relationship, and so what I experienced in hindsight is that there was just so, actually, okay, so sorry. I'm being a little messy. What I experience in hindsight is that that social harmony priority made it so that I would say the majority of myself, like, I would say like, like 75% of myself, basically, just like, not my creaturely here's here is myself in physical space and time that I felt was fine, but a lot of my internal process, I felt was too disruptive, and so, or just, like, not a match, and so I've, I just didn't put it out there, you know, and like, a lot of how I work, and I'm sure a lot of how other type attachment types work, especially nines, is you send out this ping that is indirect, but it is an honest location, and then if it's not pinged back, it's taken as rejection, and you're just like, okay, that doesn't have a place in the atmosphere, so I will not bring it out. That's
Josh Lavine 34:19
and so well, said, Yeah, that's good, yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 34:23
yeah, yeah. And so that's a lot of way I experienced. And again, it was just this, this priority of, and I guess this is part of where the self effacement comes in. Because I didn't think to push that. I didn't think to assert that that needed space, and that even if it cost him his his peace, like whatever relationships are, not always peaceful. It's fine. Um, hang on, I just lost my train of thought a little bit. Um, so yeah, over time, it just created this big, this big sub. Operation between, like the harmony that we were allowed to have together, the harmony that I was I was able to maintain with us together, versus where I was actually located, where most of my energy was dominated. This is with the Enneagram. Is I started to sink into the Enneagram in that relationship. Started to find it in that relationship. Astrology really was way before that, but even that was kind of a topic that I couldn't really play with out loud without it feeling like it was disruptive. And I'll say this too, like this goes back to the beginning of this conversation, where a lot of this is self imposed. I am perceiving myself as being disruptive, or myself as not being a match, and I'm perceiving that as a bad thing, and I'm doing the withholding on my own. My autonomous decisions are to be withholding of myself. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that creates this big division to where I no longer feel connected. I no longer feel like I have a home in or at least just like a safe place to present myself. And sure, I'm not in any kind of, like external danger. My external environment is not going to be disrupted anytime soon, but I can't me as, like the social being as a spirit has no space here, and I've made, I've done that for myself, yeah? So I've Yeah. I wanted to emphasize that, because I think a lot of attachment types can get into the language of this person did not make space for me, when really it's you didn't make space for yourself because of how you were perse, how you were perceiving you were being perceived. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Josh Lavine 36:36
It's yeah, no, you're doing great. It's that. I mean, it's so hard for attachment types to take responsibility over that pattern. Yeah. I mean, I've experienced that it's really embarrassing. I mean, it's like, it's so embarrassing. Yeah? It's like, it hurts really bad to see that in yourself. Yeah, yeah. And the relationships that have in which you've done the most hiding and the most adapting, that's where it's the most that's where the most anger comes up. And it's like, fuck you. For not, you know, for not, yes, for not reciprocating my whatever, or for not creating the space for me, or for not paying attention to me in the way that I needed to be whatever. But it's like, you know, and and all. And maybe that's true, but also the thing really, is that you didn't do it for yourself, and that's very that's a very hard pill to swallow. Yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 37:24
yes, yeah. That's very well said, Yeah. And so the end of this relationship comes in two different ways, and I'll explain both of them, but the first one that I think is important to the first one that I think is important to spell out is that, yes, I was withholding myself while still leaving my, like, physical presence out there. You know, if that makes it's just like the typical nine thing of like the they're there, but they're dissociated, yeah, so I was out there and I was doing all the hiding myself, but what that ended up doing? How do I want to phrase this? Basically, okay, the response, had I been responsible and aware of these at the time?
How do I feel? I phrase this? Had I been connected to myself, it would have been much easier for me to leave that relationship much sooner, like, the practice of dividing myself prolonged to that relationship, because I was able to keep, like a pseudo connection going when I wasn't actually connected. You know what I'm saying. So if I hadn't made that division, this relationship just just would not have lasted, just would not have lasted anywhere near as long as it did. It only lasted as long as it did because I was really good at dividing myself. Okay, so that's, that's, I feel like that's important to say, because it would have just died on its own. Okay, enter the, I don't know, the atomic bomb or whatever. So yeah, in this relationship, I am finding, I rediscovered the Enneagram. I remember it was introduced to me, like a few years prior, but it was just like in a social environment. I quickly just took a test and it escaped my mind, and then in around 2019 I saw, like an Instagram post with the word Enneagram on it, and remembered it and took the test again. And long story short, it just reignited my interest in the Enneagram, but in a way that stuck this time, because I could see that it was something deeper than just like a Buzzfeed test, which is basically what all these other typological systems do. It's like, what are you? Oh, you're a canary. And then you just move on. I. Um, so to see that there was work to be done was already very exciting for me. And then on top of that, to see there was a community of people that were engaging with it made it more exciting for me, because I started to make these connections. And even before connections were made, I was I started to have a network of people I could peeing off of. I could be that like crazy scientist with, but everyone is doing it, and so it didn't feel weird, it didn't feel unwelcome. We were all just like mixing chemicals together and seeing what came out. And it's in this time period that I found Enneagram, or universe, and I joined a chat with, you know, a bunch of people. Started making more connections there, and then it got to the point where this type of conversation was so engaging and so exciting for me that I'm in these conversations every day, every day I'm on my phone talking to just like avatars that may or may not exist, but can engage with me in a level in, like, a quality of attention that I had been in such a deficit in that I was just like starved of, yeah, you know, and it's important to say too that, like, it is not romantic attention, it's not flirtatious attention. It was just this, like analytical exploration that was just stimulating. It was just stimulating and fun and exciting. And I felt like I was get, like, mentally working. I was just working out mentally, and it felt great. So, yeah, so I'm developing all these connections, 2020, happens, pandemic, just like kills, all social life, all in person, social life. And let's see. And then the IEA conference that happens every year, it gets canceled by like September. I believe this chat starts to make plans like the makes plans to to all meet up because the conference has been canceled, but they still want to hang out. So hang out. I make the decision that I'm going to go, and I should say that before attending this trip, I had never traveled by myself. I had never really made, yeah, it sounds dramatic, but it's, it's it's true, I just hadn't made a decision for myself based on something that was exciting to me. To move forward with an action that was exciting was too risky. It just felt too dangerous for me. Yeah. So this was the first one that I was like, This is great. I have these people that I talk to all the time. We're exploring these different kinds of psychological avenues. We're doing this just like strange exploration together that's like, fun and exciting and feels stimulating. Yeah. And so I went and I went forward, I went to New York, I met everyone, and, yeah, a lot changed from that point was, yeah, were you gonna say something? No,
Josh Lavine 43:02
no, okay, okay,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 43:07
um, yeah. So this is part of the story where I meet John. John and I meet in person. I was not expecting anything to come out of that, because when I made the decision to go, I was going based on these, like, very platonic connections that I had, just smart people to be engaging with that I valued a lot, and seemed to value me. So it was like, Yeah, of course, I'm gonna go. And then John and I meet. There's something instant, like instantaneous, and trying to decide on how much detail when I go, Okay, well, whatever. Just things change from that point, whether or not it was focused on John, because I do think that had nothing come out from the sort of like activation that John and I had together, I my life still would have been different. I still would have changed my my like dynamic back in Florida. And the reason for that was because I
on this trip we spent, I think I spent, like, four days there maybe five, I can't fully remember, but I was engaged the whole time I was talking. The whole time was getting to explore these new people, and getting to interact in these, I don't know, just like a very eclectic group of people that I was not expecting to get along with so well and to resonate with so well, and to feel accepted by so quickly. And I found myself, I don't know, just in life, just alive, just feeling very renewed, feeling very connected to myself and what I had to offer, feeling like a lot of who I am was allowed in this space and like I didn't have to be self conscious, which is something we talked about even earlier in this conversation, like the lack of self consciousness put me in touch with myself in a way where I didn't have to be monitoring i. My behaviors. So then I'm flying back home, and I know immediately that I have to leave my relationship instantly. Yeah, it's like I was in a drought of this type of this, like, quality of connection and energy, and to just have that be a vacation and to come back into a space where I can no longer engage with that. I just couldn't do it. It wasn't I couldn't. Another way to say it is that trip put me in contact with how much bending and stretching and adapting I was doing and how far away that put me in touch with my like, normal, regular shape outside of all of this shifting. And it was just too much of a stretch. I just couldn't keep it going, you know, especially because, like we were, me and my ex at the time, were engaged, the attachment mission wasn't going to work. The only way that we were going to stay in this sort of harmonized space is, if I stayed in this shape, that is just not my natural state, it wasn't going to change. This is what the relationship was going to be like. And I was not satisfied. It just wasn't hitting me at a at a honest, like a soul level,
Josh Lavine 46:18
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, I mean, this is a pretty interesting I've never quite framed it like this, but the nine thing, it's kind of like, you
know, we talk about going numb a lot, and what the numbness does is It prevents you from noticing how hungry you are, yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 46:45
yeah, that's exactly right, yeah, yeah, or how hungry
Josh Lavine 46:47
your soul is, or something like that. And, and, you know, the trip was certainly a a turning point for you. You you know whether or not it was going to turn into the relationship, but just because it was in person, you were, you were saturated in this new environment in which you could actually fully be yourself. But you know, I really liked how you set it up with this. Just you already felt something in you knew that this was a good place for you, you know this. And it's funny, like Kristen's interview is about to come out, and she has a totally different life story, but a similar thing where she went to this long period of like, dissociation, depersonalization, and the thing that kept drawing her attention was the the dream world of the unconscious and and it's it's kind of like there's some there's some intelligence that your life force has independent of your personality and your life force, just like it understood that this community, this this this way of talking to people, this way of engaging with Life, is is good for you. It's nourishing. It's replenishing. It's renewing. You know, yeah, exactly, and, and in contrast to the way that you you framed up your relationship with your ex, is you couldn't go there was nothing in that relationship that could renew you, and you found something that was renewing. So, exactly,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 48:17
yeah, exactly. And it's a weird irony that I allowed that relationship based on the perceived danger, the lack of perceived danger, but the actual, like dangerous thing was the fact that there was nothing necessarily calling me towards that relationship to begin with. You know what I mean? Like nothing. Yeah, he didn't hurt me in that relationship. I ended up like hurting myself just from staying disconnected from myself. And I think that's kind of lousy phrasing, but you got him saying, Yeah, another angle on this too. So you were speaking to the recognition that my soul knew this would be good for me, or that I would be except, you know, that it would be nourishing for me. And somehow it feels like no coincidence that this was the first, like real course of action that I took for myself. You know, I'm a sexual blind and so there are certain way I would argue that this was my I would say, in my life, this would be my second. Because I think the first for me is claiming a music major, which was like the first risky choice ever, okay, but that's besides the point. Yeah, at this point, I would say this is the first that was the first real leap towards something that was really calling me and really activating me. And I remember, even in the wishy washiness of will I won't I, I had to keep talking myself into sort of, like, I don't know how to phrase it, like a lack of effectiveness that would happen. Like, my phrasing was, like, I'm just gonna go hang out with friends, and if I don't like them, I'm gonna come home. Like, not. And nothing's gonna happen. It's fine. I'm just gonna go hang out with people, and then I'm gonna come back, nevermind the fact that I've never fucking met any of these people, that these are people I met on the internet, you know, like the stranger dangers, just like written all over this. And I just dismissed all of that because I knew I knew somehow, yeah, but it's like, it's like, you know, it's not actually that I knew, because I knew that I didn't fully know, like, I didn't have certainty, but I knew that it could there's something there was, like, a goodness that could happen and that was worth it. The worst that could hack that, yeah. The worst that could happen is that I got there, felt really disconnected, and then nothing would happen. So I think another angle was that I just like needed something to happen. And so the pursuit of the something that could happen, towards something that was calling me was enough.
Josh Lavine 50:58
Yeah. So, okay, so So you have this moment you meet John, and then obviously you guys are now in a relationship. And so, you know one thing that, one thing that I found as a three is that, as especially as a triple attachment three, is that I'll have some profound life awakening, you know, just like a true moment of awakening that changes my life. It happened with piano. It happened with the anagram and and, like, there's others I could probably talk about, but it's like this, there's a certain lightning strike, and it's like, well, everything is different now. And, yes, yeah, yeah. And the funny thing about me being having a three ego is that you think to yourself or I think to myself, I've arrived. I This is me. I'm fully me now. I am, I am. I never have to worry ever again about inauthenticity. I am.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 52:00
I am here, yeah, yeah. And yeah, man, I still relate, yeah.
Josh Lavine 52:05
And I've been humbled again and again that that just isn't true, and the pattern is alive and so so as a triple attachment three, I find myself adapting in ways, or dissociating ways, or whatever that I only wake up to weeks or years later, and I'm like, Oh, God, it happened again, and so, so here you are. You moved to you moved to New York, you moved in with John and and more. Nineness, more, triple attachment stuff has its way into your life. Oh, yeah. So, yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 52:43
let's go in that direction. Okay, okay, a little bit before Yeah, that though Uh huh is, and this is just a quick thing, like, I want to emphasize how fast the move was, how quick, okay, like, I am in New York within, I believe, two weeks the relationship is over, and within, like, a week from that, I am in a new apartment. Like, oh, wow, tote. It's very fast. It was very fast. Okay, yeah. It was this weird, like, stars aligning into my triple attachment body. This was, like, weird parting of the seas where I am suddenly super fucking clear on what I need to do, how I need to do it, and then it needs to happen right now. And so it was this, like, I don't know, this, like, weird, big life nine force thing that came out and, and it was like, you know, there was, like, some guilt or some feelings, of course, but everything was just very clear and focused, and it happened very quickly. And it is kind of funny, because knowing you now and how quickly and how focused you can move, I was, like Josh would have been really proud of me during this time so fast. Yeah, it was, it was just very clear and nothing was going to stop me. Nothing was going to stop me. It was just like a love I am repeating the same word over and over again. But it was just like a clarity that told me, not only can I go back, I like have to move now, because the window is going to close, and I can't get stuck here, because now I'm aware of, like, a misery that I didn't realize I was in, and I can't get stuck here. So, yeah, moved really fast. I am in my own apartment for, like, maybe, I think it was like eight or nine months, or something like that. And then again, there was this weird parting of the seas the universe like helped me move to New York. I ended up crashing my car by accident, obviously, and I got this check from the totaling, or whatever it's called, The settlement, and that helped me cancel my lease, get rid of my car. I moved to New. York, there was no plan. I didn't have a job lined up. It was just like, Okay, now I have to fling the window is gonna close. I have to do it now, because if I don't, I will get stuck in some dumb pattern again. I know it. I've been alive for like, 28 years at this point. Like, I fucking know what's gonna happen if I don't move right now. Yeah, so that was some weird hacking of my own personality that happened at that point. But then, yes, now I'm in New York. Now I'm in New York, I move right into John's apartment. I have left my family back in Florida. I've left my friends back in Florida. I don't have a job at this point, and I'm not in a neutral space. I moved into the apartment that John had at the time, so it is thrust out of like I'm thru. I'm taken out, taken taken myself. I took myself out of the environment that wasn't satisfying, but I knew it to be mine, and launched into this new place that I'm completely unfamiliar with, but that John is very familiar with. So yeah, it was like exciting for a little bit, being in New York, being a different city, having a different routine, all of that kind of stuff. But eventually, as I think is typical, for not just nine and triple attachment, but the sexual, blind stacking. I'm like, wanting some what's the word I want to use? I'm like, needing to find my footing. I need to know the lay of the land now. I need to know how things are work. How things are working. What do I fit into? What is my relationship to my environment, to the people around? How do I orient myself new now? Yeah, what's the word? How do I achieve a new homeostasis? And I would like to say i i would like to, well, this is relating to what you were saying, that you'll have these, like, cataclysmic moments where you're like, I'm done. I know who I am. I've individuated my know my identity, blah, blah, blah. I've, I've, I'm finished. I definitely had that for a little bit. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I've defeated the Enneagram. I've risen above. I, I did it, but that definitely didn't, but that, of course, did not happen, and it was this slow new process of, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be so sloppy about how I explain this. But it was this new process of realizing that I am just attaching into my new environment. You know, I know John loves me. I know the podcast loves, you know, like, I know that I have, like, the love and admiration of these people that fucking does not matter to the attachment pattern. And in certain ways, considering that I have a three fix, like, in certain ways, that is what ignites this new attachment. Like, now I've left, I don't have my original reference points, so now I'm going to use this, like new admiration, these new this new praise as my reference point. It was a weird process, because for a while I don't know that I've actually told them this. I guess they'll find out now, for a while, I was stressed out by being sort of like, held up as the person that has, like, figured out the sexual blind spot, like she did it now she, she's it's integrated, and it's done. That was stressing me out, yeah? Because
Josh Lavine 58:49
people were, people were just asking you about it again and again, about right, again and again, the spokesperson for the sexual blind revolution, yes,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 58:58
yeah. And what was happening was, like, you guys don't understand. This was like, an impulse that I followed, but I'm not understanding yet. I'm still fucking confused all the time. I still have these insecurities where I'm like, and it was this weird dual sided thing where, like, first of all, I'm not understanding it for my own and similar to this interview, now I'm feeling all the eyes expect me to understand. So it's this, this like, and it's just the attachment pattern at work, because now I'm, like, trying to understand for myself, not even for myself, so that I can perform understanding to the new people that are watching me, just to keep the thing going, like I moved into these new attachments, definitely autonomously, but I could feel the pattern kicking back up where I'm not liberated anymore. Now I have new pressures being put on me, and they don't know they're doing that, but I feel it. Um, yeah, that was that was definitely confusing for a while there. I remember there was a big. A chunk of time where the conversation was surrounding individuation, and that was another thing that was pointing at me a lot, like attachment. How do you individuate? How do you locate? I was thinking on the fly. I do think I'm pretty good at doing that, so I don't think I was like dishonest in any way, but there were certain points of time where I was not speaking out of out of like having the time and space and the solitude to come to conclusions on my own. I was just trying to maintain a new standard that I felt like I was being held to. Yeah,
Josh Lavine 1:00:44
and I'll add again, this is, this is, I have a very strong sense that this is accurate, but I'm also speaking from my experience, so I'm accurate for you. But so here's what I think when, when you have this kind of revolution of selfhood and you you you wake up and you realize I've not been myself. I've been attached into a misery that I didn't even I wasn't even aware of. And it's almost like you shift into a new level of consciousness that you then become loyal to. There's a new there's a new rung on the consciousness ladder that you are now anchored to. And the your self sense is that, and that thing is very, very, very sensitive to any form of adaptation that you're doing that feels like an abandonment of your self center, you know, yes. And very well said, Yeah. And so there's a constant monitoring of how much of myself am I being, versus how much of myself, am I not being and when you're being asked, Tell us about how integrated, how you integrate your sexual blind spot, and you're speaking about it publicly, it feels like speaking from not self. And that tension, that tension creates a kind of shame, or a kind of at very least, there's like an elasticity. That's like, I want to come back to self. I don't want to leave this, you know, but the attachment pattern is that I also don't want to lose people's respect, so I do want to speak to it. And so a whole new pattern emerges, which is this, like negotiation of self, and the people that have that are now admiring me for having discovered and anchored to this self, but now asking me questions that are taking me out of it.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:02:46
Yeah, God, that is so perfectly put. And this showed up in a few different things, in a few different ways, not just talking about individuation and the sexual blind spot, but this change and the reignition that it brought me, and the sort of, I don't know, it did really feel like a rebirth. And like, yeah, like my like, waters were moving again. This brought me back in contact with my, my studying of astrology, and I was able to, like, really dive into it with a lot of vigor and a lot of attention and a lot of enthusiasm. Up until this point, I had always loved astrology, and I'd always been studying it, but I didn't. It was always just like a sexual, blind compartmentalization of, like, I like this, but this is outside of what is practical and necessary, and so that's just really in the free time kind of thing, whereas now, with this, like, whole change, I made an intention to make that my priority, to really, like, develop myself in this way. And I did was reading a ton. I was practicing. I was reading a bunch of people's charts, just experimenting, just playing on my own, talking to other people about it, and then I feel like, too prematurely, I put the pressure on myself to make this a static thing, yeah. And I think, like, that's just a lesson I'm going to have to keep learning over and over and over again. It's like I need to not be attached to any kind of static Ness. And this conversation you and I have explored too. Is attachment supposed to be hexad in the sense of a fixed location? I don't think so. Right, right? And I think that's what I had been trying to do. I'd been trying to discover my fixed location, but then that left me no wiggle room, yeah, and then I found myself putting astrology at a distance, even though I had just been so excited about it, and it was this weird cognitive dissonance again, because then people were looking at me as this astrology person when I'm like, Yes, but leave me alone so that I can actually be that.
Josh Lavine 1:04:53
Yeah, there's and so there's a lot to say about that. I mean, there's your six fix attack. Into the hexad, heavy orientation of the group, which is that, hey, attachment people fucking, why don't you just figure shit out, you know, like, locate yourselves, you know, and and so the the ego project of locating yourself. The other thing too is, I think, that there's, there's something very precious that emerges after a rebirth like you experienced. And one of the things that emerges is a sense of the sacredness of what is mine, and a sense of the the fragility of it, or like the not wanting it to be fucked with, you know, and the sentence and the sensitivity of it to literally anybody's gaze and, and, you know what I mean? And so, yes, so, of course. So here you find yourself in a new group. You're now like a partner person on the podcast. People are now talking about your astrology work. You're in a state of sort of ambivalence about promoting your own astrology work, and the fact that it's now out there dilutes the privacy of it for you, and it takes it away. It takes it away from that sacred thing. I watched this interview once with, with Toni Morrison that I just loved. And it was she was talking about, actually, she was being interviewed by a white reporter that was asking her some pretty racist questions. One of the things she was like, the woman was asking her, you know, are you ever going to incorporate more white characters into your work? And she was like, Well, you know, kind of reframing the entire thing. And she basically said, I was interested in black readership, and I wanted to, I wanted to keep myself protected from the white gaze, so that I could go to where the fertility was, where the soil was, which is the work fertility, you know, and and so she had this real sense of protecting her own private practice of the writing which there were certain environments in which she felt safe to reveal it, maybe the black gays or whatever. But there was a certain there was a quality of some quality of gaze that fell upon her work that would contaminate it, or that would do, do violence onto it in a way that would make it harder for her to tune into the work, you know, that would you get what I'm saying? And I think that there's, yeah, so there's something, something like that, you know, going on here, and there's this negotiation for you of what is, what's, what do you contain in this private chamber? What do you reveal? What don't you reveal? And all these questions, what's yours? What's not yours? That whole thing, I think, is something you've been navigating.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:07:50
For sure, yes, yes, I've been trying. Because what happens when I feel like my privacy is invaded is a strong word, but it, you know, just feels that way. Sometimes, when I feel like my privacy is invaded, that is when all of my like performing starts, or that's when I feel like the temptation to perform starts, because now I'm not in this, like, I'm not, yeah, I'm not behind. How do I say this? I'm not just playing and alchemizing and discovering on my own, now I'm being looked at for some final product, or at least that has been like the heavy, heavy conditioning that I've had from, I don't know, childhood or something like that is just like performing when I'm looked at, I'm here to make you comfortable. I'm here to perform to your standards. Here to make you feel safe. That's it. That's all I'm supposed to do. So a new practice. I don't even know if this is related or not, but it comes up in this conversation is like where I'm landing right now. A lot of what the sexual instinct for me is just the states of UN self consciousness and play, and that's all it is for me right now. This is where I feel like my highest creativity comes from, where I can just practice and not practice in, like, the I feel like even social self press can take something as as like, unrefined, as what practice is supposed to be, and try to make it into these, like, into this, like, smooth line, ballerina practice, like the, You know, that kind of thing, like practice is sometimes too charged a word for me, even it sounds too disciplined, it needs to be playful and just fun and kind of messy and with no expectation of any result. That's what that's what it that's what it is to me as it stands right now. And so what I'm learning. Learning is maybe I can, maybe I can play in front of people and and have that be some new kind of development, like, even in this conversation, I don't have anything prepared, and I recognize how, like, all over the place I've been bouncing sometimes, but I feel really good right now. So you guys are just gonna get what you get. Yeah,
Josh Lavine 1:10:27
I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the, like, this formulation of this rebirth, and then discovering your, the center of you that is yourself, and then, and then that being the sacred thing that you're trying to protect, but that it's very it's dangerous to reveal it, because then it kind of like the image in my head is like, as soon as, as soon as you open the door that contains it, it, like, it dissolves into, like, all its pedals, just like, fall away and it's and then you have to, like, reconstitute it. And then that's a private thing. You have to, you know, and so, and you have to, like, go away, like, away from everybody, to, like, reconstitute this. My experience anyway, certainly, yeah, and, and that thing that, once it is constituted, that's, that's the thing that you know, you know, when that thing chooses something, and then you know, it was your choice. You know, like, I choose this friend group, I choose this pursuit, I choose this artistic or creative outlet, whatever. Like, that's, that's when you know, you know, because it was made by this thing. But if it's made by that thing, in a moment when it's diffusing, confused, yeah, yeah, there's and it's funny. I was talking to John recently, and I was, I forget exactly what I was talking about, but it was, it had something to do with the just getting washed out by somebody's expectations me or something like that, and not not being able to bring myself to negotiate for myself, or something like that in the moment. And he goes, You know, I always have a sense of myself as like, like, there's always activity out there, but there's always like me in this little box inside me, like and I can always go there. I can always just find that, you know. And so even if I'm in the conversation with you right now, he's like, I can always just be in my box and then know where I'm at, you know. And that's, that's, you know, rather than over locating yourself as an attachment type into a precise and a position that has longevity. The attachment project, or the attachment growth project, is really finding that box, you know, and protecting that box for yourself. Yeah? So, yeah. So here we are in this life moment for you, where you're kind of, you're still engaged in the process of discovering what your life your box, you know your box, and the choices you're making from that place in terms of, you know, what parts of the of John's world that you've entered into are your choice and and What, what aspect or expression of astrology is your choice versus a thing that gets over, or that the thing that gets, like, contaminated by or, yeah, or stretched too far by other people's expectations? You know? Yes, yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:13:36
yeah. I experiences as decided upon. I experience it as gets decided upon by other people. There you go, yeah and yeah. Sometimes, I guess there's
Josh Lavine 1:13:47
your nine autonomy. That's the autonomy piece right there. Yeah, exactly,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:13:51
yeah, exactly, yeah. It has felt like, um, like, for example, a lot of the like, specialness and the sacredness of what I feel exists in my relationship with John, and a lot of the like liberation, like within myself that has come from this is just a certain way that John sees me. I feel like he sees me for my eccentricity and for my specificity, even if I don't fucking know what that is. And a lot of the beginning of our relationship was feeling kind of startled that he could see that, but also excited that he could see that. But then I think what has happened, or what was happening for a little bit, is that I was, like, I was kind of in this like frenzy state of like, Oh, does he still see that? Like I was over relying on his ability to see that instead of experiencing experiencing it for myself. So then what happened, and this relates to what I said earlier about other people deciding it for me is that I would take again an external gaze and. On what my eccentricity is, what my flavor is, and then I would just decide that that was probably true, or at least start to experiment with that as like what could be true. So a lot of my processing and my yeah process has been okay. They feel that way. Do I feel that way? Or, yeah, and it was this weird hack too, because it did come from me, like he didn't put astrology on me. I was already practicing Astrology. But then it was like the vigor with which he said it, I don't know, did something. So, yeah, a lot of it is like a has been a reclaiming, kind of not from him or from other people necessarily, but just like from myself. Again, I really want to emphasize the like accountability that attachment needs to take. If I think other people are putting things on me, it's because I'm giving them the power to put things on. I'm responding to them instead of myself. That's right. There you go. Yeah. So a lot of it is just bringing it back to myself, of like, okay, if, if Emeka, for example, wants me to, like, I don't know, study pine cones, because that's specific. And I've, like, played with pine cone. I don't know, this is a weird example played with a pine cone. Once do I want to do that? Or, like, how do I want to relate to that? Is that something I see as important? You know, like, there are ways that I can see, like, another way, there are things that I recognize about John that are very much present and true and strong, and I think, very defining, that he doesn't take on as himself, that he doesn't like, that's not what he like, values within myself, even though it is an external value of mine onto him. Does that make sense? So I think, I think seeing that in that way, like people can appreciate things about me that I don't I don't care about that. I don't want to focus on because, right, that's great that you like that, but like, I am more enlivened by this, so I'm going to do this. Wow, you can enjoy whatever you saw. Yeah, be
Josh Lavine 1:17:17
thinking about that one for a while. That's good. Yeah?
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:17:21
So yeah, I'm not sure if I've even fully answered that question, or if it's even obvious to anybody watching the interview, like where I'm at in my process, but it's still, still, definitely, it's been just a process of of retuning and constantly, and this is another thing that needs to be emphasized constantly. Re attuning myself to what I'm excited by. Yeah, yeah. Another example I can even put into this is, like the reality TV stuff, yeah, I feel like that's been, I think it was like David, that was the first person that's like, you really need to be louder in the social space with, like, all of this kind of stuff, blah, blah, blah. And I think what started happening, this is a different language for the same thing, but I think what started happening to me was as soon as I would feel pressure, I would just kind of shut down, even if it did come for me. This happened with astrology. This happened with Yeah, with the reality TV stuff. And only a few weeks ago have I finally taken a jump on reality TV, because I decided how I want to do it, yeah, and and then I want to do it that it's actually fun for me, yeah. And for context,
Josh Lavine 1:18:37
we've I've heard you talk about reality TV with the Enneagram for since I've met you, which how, how long have I known you? Now?
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:18:48
I mean, we met quickly in 2020
Josh Lavine 1:18:50
2020, right, yeah. So, yeah, since I, since I have known you, you, that's been your thing. But yeah. So,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:18:57
yeah, I moved here. Yeah. I moved here in 2021 I'd say maybe that sure, but yes, yeah,
Josh Lavine 1:19:04
I'm noticing the time. But I want to, I want to kind of move into one other territory before we close the the way that you have been discovering or rediscovering intimacy from a social point of view and friendship and and the trip that we just had, and the choosing and being chosen from that from that place that Is your constituted center.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:19:37
Yeah, yeah, that's been that's been really big. That's been a really big processing for the past couple of days. So for context, a bunch of us just met up in Chicago. We had a great time with each other. There were people that came to this trip that were. On the last trip that we all met up with each other and got to hang out in but what happened for me is I was able to reach a level of of intimacy with them that I wasn't that I didn't have the opportunity to, and that was really profound for me, and really affected me in in ways I didn't expect to be affected. And let's see. How do I even want to jump into this? It's just opened up a lot of confessions to myself, one of them being that I don't I don't think, okay, so I'm social. I'm a social type, um, social self, Pres and intimacy, both in relationships and in friendships, has have always been extremely important to me, but I've always felt like a chronic, uh, distance from intimacy in both my relationships and my friendships with people. And I think what this last trip did was it put it put me in touch with the ways that that distance, that a lot of that distance has been at my own doing, has been at my own hiding, dismissing.
I don't know things like that, like I even recognize a way that I can I can be kind of snobby and I can be kind of judgmental, and I can prefer. This is all subconscious, of course, but there's a way that I can prefer to be around, around people, that I can have criticism towards, not externally, but I can feel criticism towards as a way to justify distance. Because I think what distance does is it keeps me from intimacy, because I think, like as much as I want intimacy, what comes with that kind of contact with love is it's a huge call to action to face a lot of your wounding. It's an enormous, at least, that's what I've been experiencing. It's just, it's an enormous call to action to face for me, feelings of of unworthiness. You know, I've been talking this whole, this whole conversation around feeling like I need to perform and not just be Yeah, yeah. And what happened on this trip was, there was one point where me and some of the girls were expressing how we like, want to be closer friends with each other, and how we like, already love each other and try not to get emotional in this.
I was told, how do I collect this without giving too much away. Basically, I was already I was shown that I was already loved and already cared for in ways that I didn't feel like I earned, because I didn't know to try to earn it. You know? I don't, I don't know if that's totally making sense, but this like concept of just being loved freely was specifically in the context of friendship, this, this idea of being loved freely and being in intimacy freely. God, I don't know,
just put me in, I guess. I guess part of what happened was it put me in contact with this like sense of grief that I have been avoiding this kind of contact for my whole life, and using my stacking as a way to do that, and using my triple attachment methods as a way to do that. Yeah, I know I'm kind of going all over the place. But there's another way that this feels like this trip, this last trip, and this experience with them felt like the friendship equivalent of what happened in 2020 when I met John, right? And so there is this sense that something has happened and it's going to change now. So it's just, yeah, there's just, there's been a lot there. I don't know if there's something you want to tease out of this. I got a little Yeah, emotional here, yeah,
Josh Lavine 1:24:33
well, I mean, I can feel, I can feel how close to the center of your heart this is, and just to kind of recap it, it's like the social self, Pres snootiness combined with triple attachment. It's like there's a certain way that there's a comfort in relationships in which you can maintain an emotional distance. Yes, and. When you genuinely love someone and sort of, gosh, wow, they love you too. You know, like something different happens, and all of the all of the barriers that were once over your heart have an opportunity to resolve to dissolve. And there's a thrill in that, but there's also an abject terror, because it opens up that incredibly sensitive heart nerve that is, especially as a social type, that's like, exceptionally precious, that is like, you know, that's like, the center of
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:25:33
you, yeah, yeah. And as a social type too, that's like, where the stakes are the highest, yeah? So in moving along with my theme of just seeing a lack of red flags as the green flag. There's a lot of ways, there's a lot of ways that, even in friendships, I have not made choices, conscious choices. I've done passive accepting of whatever has been in my environment, but I have not done the active choosing and the active committing in a lot of ways. And then on top of that, because of all of my like hiddenness, I don't feel like I had been chosen either, right? And so I don't know there was just, there was a lot to this past weekend that was really, really loud and really special. And, you know, I'm obviously still processing this, but even the other day, you and I talked about looking around, you know, the Airbnb that we were all staying at, and being like, wow, this is like a collection of like weirdos and like it feels like our people. It feels like like this is like the family that I've chosen. And so there was some dissecting where I realized that I don't know that it made sense that I wasn't attracting these kind of people, that I wasn't moving forward towards these type of people, one out of like a sexual blind spot, kind of fear thing, moving towards things and towards people that I'm attracted to raises the stakes in certain ways. But then, on the other hand, me doing this kind of triple attachment hiding meant that I wasn't. I wasn't. I
was kind of hiding in plain sight, you know, like these people wouldn't have been able to find me, yeah, even if I was right in front of them because of the hiding I
Josh Lavine 1:27:43
was doing well, so here we are.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:27:46
So here we are, um,
Josh Lavine 1:27:50
I feel moved to just say I also, I mean, we had our own social kind of friendship moment, and that was really special to me. And I experienced that same kind of like a really similar kind of thing where it's like, the, you know, having, we were talking about this, like having a friend is a rare thing, you know, a real friend. Where real? Yeah, a real, a real friend, you know, where, where that whole, like, both people feel like they can actually really reveal themselves and be loved and accepted for it's just that's a that's a very beautiful and very rare thing, and it's kind of like what I live for as a social totally Yes, what I live for, you know, anyway, so it's, Yeah, it's really special, and I feel that with you. That with you, and I feel that with you too, yeah, I feel really lucky about that. So
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:28:47
yeah, me too, me too. I feel another thing, I guess, to say in relation to just everything we've talked about, and just to kind of wrap things up as best I can, is these past few years have been, yes, very transformative. They've been very, very difficult. There are times of like, just really intense difficulty. I'm still constantly figuring out what it means to be sexually integrated, what it means to like, locate where I am in a moment. I still have moments where sometimes I'm like, really attached to my location, to a point of stubbornness, of like, keeping everybody else out, and then other times I'm extremely prone to the outside, to a point where I, like, completely lose my sense of where my own value or worth comes from. So this is, like, very much in flux, yeah, but I wouldn't, I mean, I wouldn't change anything about it, because the direction that it's taking, I feel like, is just, I don't know. It's just a kind of paradise that I don't think a lot of people get to. Experience. And so even in all this chaos, I feel just a ton of gratitude for getting able to struggle, for getting to be able to struggle like this, because I feel like I'm forging I have, I have a real relationship that I'm allowed to show up in, that I can push, that I can challenge, that I can be messy in. There is, like a real contact with love in my relationship and in my friendships. I'm forging these friendships that I can exist with the same sort of energetic quality and getting able to receive that and then getting able to being able to give that back. Yeah, to echo you it's just, I feel like what I'm put here for. Yeah, so feels good,
Josh Lavine 1:30:47
so I'm taking a breath, yeah, and yeah. How are you feeling right now? What's this been like? And is there anything else that you want to say in closing?
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:31:05
I feel really good. Yeah, there's a certain way I need to take a breath too, but I feel really good. You know, something that we didn't talk about is like, how difficult it was to get this interview.
Josh Lavine 1:31:21
Yeah, that's right, yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, you want to talk about
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:31:27
that for a second, trying to wrangle, I don't know. I assume you have maybe that timeline, and you can just keep that to yourself, like, I've been, yeah, you've been trying to wrangle me to, like, locate in this one interview. And I've, you know, in certain ways, been like, yeah, cool, let's do it. And then I mysteriously I'm not here. And so, like, what happens to me a lot is this kind of thing where I will really overthink something and really just, like, make it a lot bigger and more complicated than it is in my head, but now we're doing this, and this has been so much fun. And you know, this is maybe not the like, polished presentation I would have, like written or like wanted on. I don't know something like that, but I feel very much myself here, and I feel very lucky to be at this interview with you. And yeah, it's just another one of those, like silly lessons, where silly reminders, where I'm just supposed to be playing. Yeah, if it's messy, that's fine.
Josh Lavine 1:32:39
Yeah. So it's taken about six months to get this interview, I think, yeah, and it's that, I mean, what's just so cool about it, though, is that that itself is the journey that we unpacked in this interview, which is your your your continual process of coming home to yourself and constituting and solidifying that center that is you and choosing your life. And you know, the interview that we would have recorded six months ago, it would have been interesting, but it would have, it would have certainly demonstrated a very different aspect of nine interview. And this is. And, you know, one of the things we were talking about that, I think, is, I think even this interview has been a really good demonstration of is, like, nine going to three. It's not, it's not like, I think a lot of nines develop a certain super, super ego about it, where it's like, I gotta get to three. And that becomes a kind of pressure that further entrenches you into nineness. And the way that nine going to three is sometimes held is as a kind of like, I gotta get more productive. I gotta get you know. I'm gonna, you know, yeah, sort of triumphant, yeah,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:34:00
totally, very polished and well prepared, yeah, like, I'm
Josh Lavine 1:34:02
gonna get myself out there. But really, there's just this, there's this, there's a thawing, and there's a there's just revealing of who you are. And I think in particular with you, there's the sense of, just like, freedom of expression and the fun and the goofiness and all that stuff that comes out that is, that is the light, you know, that's the three that's like your heart that's actually shining through, yeah, and yeah, I just, I love it. It's really beautiful. So thank you, yeah. So thank you for doing this. And yeah, thanks
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:34:38
for thanks for, how do I say this? Thanks for staying patient. I guess. Okay,
Josh Lavine 1:34:44
you're welcome. I'm glad we also, well, we had that moment. I don't even think it's recorded, but, or it probably is. But that moment we started this interview, and we had to start over because I was being Oh, yeah, I just want to say one of. Think my reflection is like your your story is, I mean, there's a lot of ways that I relate to these, like moments where lightning strikes and then things change and but what I one of the things that I just respect so much about you is is how you are continually engaged in your own process of what's the right way to put it, excavating yourself. There's just like, like, I've seen you withdraw. I've seen you. I um, I've seen you clam up in in the context of our friendship or in a social but I've but I've never seen you give up on yourself.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:35:50
Hmm, no, thank you. That means a lot.
Josh Lavine 1:35:54
Yeah, wow. Just surprised myself. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I find that very beautiful.
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:36:07
Thank you, Josh.
Josh Lavine 1:36:12
Well, okay,
Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo 1:36:14
we did it. This has been so special. Yeah, thank you so much. All right, thanks, Alexandra.
Josh Lavine 1:36:18
You
