This week's episode is a continuation of our conversation with Igor Meystelman, divorce attorney turned relationship coach. Today's episode delves into the heart of Igor's realization that if he was working as a lawyer to earn his father's approval, he would never truly live for himself.
Igor shows us how to bravely, yet responsibly, begin a new career later in life. He displays how to harmonize pursuing your dreams while still making sure you can provide for your family. This is an episode for anyone who wants to make a career change of any kind.
To check out Igor's relationship coaching: https://www.relationshipreimagined.com/
For Igor's very own podcast: https://www.relationshipreimagined.com/podcast
For Igor's law practice: https://theimlawgroup.com/
Igor's book recommendations:
For Single's
https://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Love-You-Find-Personal/dp/0671734202
For Couple's
https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Love-You-Want-Anniversary/dp/0805087001
This week's episode is a continuation of our conversation with Igor Meystelman, divorce attorney turned relationship coach. Today's episode delves into the heart of Igor's realization that if he was working as a lawyer to earn his father's approval, he would never truly live for himself.
Igor shows us how to bravely, yet responsibly, begin a new career later in life. He displays how to harmonize pursuing your dreams while still making sure you can provide for your family. This is an episode for anyone who wants to make a career change of any kind.
To check out Igor's relationship coaching: https://www.relationshipreimagined.com/
For Igor's very own podcast: https://www.relationshipreimagined.com/podcast
For Igor's law practice: https://theimlawgroup.com/
Igor's book recommendations:
For Single's
https://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Love-You-Find-Personal/dp/0671734202
For Couple's
https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Love-You-Want-Anniversary/dp/0805087001
Hey everybody, I'm Kimberly Dobbs.
Speaker 2:And I'm Jacob Miller.
Speaker 1:And we'd like to welcome you to another episode of Intuitive Choices.
Speaker 2:Kim and I are mental health therapists working in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1:Each week, we invite a guest to speak about how their own intuitive choices have led them to live a more meaningful life.
Speaker 2:We hope that this conversation encourages you to make meaningful choices in your own life.
Speaker 1:Alright, off we go.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to our interview with Igor Meiselman, relationship coach and emago therapist. This is part two of a two-part episode we have with Igor, so if you haven't had a chance already, please check out part one.
Speaker 2:And just in case you haven't listened to last week's episode yet, here's a little clip from last week to set you up for today.
Speaker 3:About seven years into our marriage, I was well into my work career. I actually was now about three years into my own firm that I started. Very exciting. Everything was sort of on the horizon, going in the right direction. And one day my wife just said to me you know, I'm tired of kind of going on the same dates. We always do, you know, either going out to eat or we're going to watch a show, and I'd like to do something different. I said, okay, what do you have in mind? And she said I'd like to go to a couples therapist.
Speaker 2:And I froze If my wife said that to me. I think my heart was fat for a second, so were you laughing like that?
Speaker 1:I was not laughing like that.
Speaker 2:I put you in the scribe.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What was your candid response when she suggested it?
Speaker 3:Exactly Jacob said I froze. I stared at her and I said the following sentence is something wrong.
Speaker 2:And now, without further ado, today's episode. So, igor, can you let us know a little bit about growing up, how you got to college, law school, what was that experience like? And then I can't imagine, after putting so much effort into getting to college and law school and succeeding in those fields and then having the courage to switch to amalgotherapy. There's a lot going on there.
Speaker 1:What's your marriage and family therapy right? Absolutely yeah to just a totally different field.
Speaker 2:How did how?
Speaker 1:did you grow up?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I appreciate it very much actually when you've added that the whole suitcase in the past, because I was also going to say I'll give you sort of like very quickly the end of the story and then take you back to the beginning, because what wound up happening and looking back, why I felt we just were added.
Speaker 3:For five years my wife and I were added at this therapy is because as I accessed that suitcase and I started to bring what was in my subconscious into consciousness. One of the things I realized through and it was very painful realization is I wasn't practicing law because I was a lawyer. I was practicing law because I wanted to win my father's love and respect.
Speaker 1:Igor, I am getting the chills everywhere, so am I. That is, keep, just keep going.
Speaker 3:I just I listeners.
Speaker 1:This is so important to human. Yeah, like yeah, go, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I cried, and then I hated myself, and then I hated my father, and I was filled with lots of very confusing feelings and thoughts, like how does that realization lead to hate?
Speaker 1:because I was just going to let you keep going, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Because what I work at least on my journey, but I definitely now is guided enough clients and seen it in other people's lives as well.
Speaker 3:You know, like the way we say how in grief there's like five steps to grieving process, I feel like there's also a number of steps to a process of coming into yourself, into a place of conscious living, and one of the things is the experience of wait a second.
Speaker 3:I just did things in my life and made hugely important life, defining decisions, unconsciously or subconsciously, and then to realize, to have a moment of wait. There was some sort of like a puppeteer in the background this, you know, subconscious mind that dictated choices, and there's almost like a feeling of like I was victimized by something and before I could move on into an authentic existence, I had to pause and say like whoa, I can't believe this happened to me and I didn't want to just sort of, you know, oppress or suppress another feeling. I wanted to allow that feeling to exist so I could properly move forward. And at least for me in my own journey, one of the things that came up was just a feeling of being victimized, feeling of like wow, like things have taken place in my life and I wasn't part of conscious decision making process.
Speaker 1:That's right, which you could argue, you know, we could say that's, that's children in general, right, like you know, we are, yeah, we are the product of our parents. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so. So, as I processed all of that and slowly, sort of unburdened, and I let it go, then finally I was able to ask, from a place of clarity and a relaxed sort of state of being well, what would I want to do if, if I was 20 again and Igor was asked Igor, the world is for the taking, the world is waiting for you. Where do you want to go? What path you want to pick? And what slowly began to surface for me was I would like to live a life of a healer. I don't want to live a life of a lawyer, I'm a healer.
Speaker 3:That that's what began to sort of come into focus slowly, as I became more aligned with what I felt was my authentic Identity and I wanted to touch it and express myself from an identity level of being.
Speaker 1:Igor, this is Like my eyes started to like well up, because it's that is an extraordinary Realization we're coming to, knowing about your yourself.
Speaker 2:How were you able to make the space to to get that much clarity bomb?
Speaker 3:question, because maybe now I'm gonna shock you a little. Let's go back to a moga therapy. I, I didn't make the space, my wife made the space and I'll explain. That's a big twist and I'll explain what I mean. Okay, moga therapy believes that the following idea we are born into relationships.
Speaker 3:We are, we are harmed in relationships and we heal through relationships. We are relational beings. If I went off the mountain top and I meditated, I Don't believe I would come to the clarity that I came to the way I came to this clarity is session after session after session, having the most important person in my life sitting across from me, holding space as I shared my authentic self, and her safe presence Allowed for my internal transformation.
Speaker 1:Wow, now what? What would you say to somebody that maybe isn't in a relationship but Really is on a path of self-discovery right that they don't necessarily need or I don't know? You tell me that that was an integral part of your, of your process of aligning. But what about for somebody who's not in a relationship? Do you think they have an opportunity? Do you think they have the same opportunity To get to that, that level of self-awareness and alignment? Yes and no.
Speaker 3:I would say that there is a certain amount of depth we are capable of reaching on our own. The way I would describe it, I think is the most accurate way to say it is it's not that you won't access.
Speaker 3:Let's say you know the full depth of who you are on your own. It's more of that. We are multi-dimensional and there are different Compartments within who we are. Our essence we will access on our own, and there's some compartments that will simply stay dormant Until we bring to life and awaken the relational components oh, I'm so.
Speaker 1:I was like say or that the other. The other is what awakens at the environment.
Speaker 2:It's like an epiphenomena, something that arises based of this situation. Yes, so.
Speaker 3:Henry David Thoreau, to me, is like the classic example of right lives on the pond by himself Produces tremendous. You know literature. You know some of the greatest works of 19th century American literature. Ultimately, is there something in my opinion or something that was left dormant. Yes, the relational parts of him.
Speaker 1:Really, I love that you're saying that, but are there parts of him?
Speaker 3:that are also part of his Essence, that came to life by going through an introspective internal journey, absolutely oh.
Speaker 1:My gosh you are. I Like I could eat this like breakfast, lunch, but I do want to.
Speaker 1:I want to ask One, one more question, and maybe it's more of a statement. Just see how you respond to it. Your, your pivot, your transition right from law to relationship, couples, counseling. Okay, when you talked about realizing that you know you practice law not because you wanted to be a lawyer, but because you wanted to sort of like fulfill, you know, this relationship with your dad. But, like I would push back at you a little bit and say, couldn't we say that that was all a part of your, of the process, right to like get to where you are here, going through that experience of being a lawyer for all those years and all the types of Experiences you've had as an attorney, that that also can can was a part of your journey in a really important way, or not?
Speaker 3:That's a great great point. Remember I mentioned that.
Speaker 2:Kim Eagle as a big where has a big old Forget, you guys could see me, I forgot.
Speaker 1:I also you are. I don't know if you know this. I'm blind. I'm actually blind, so I cannot see you at all anyway. So Joe's Jacob does great things by describing Okay.
Speaker 3:Tell you as follows. Remember I mentioned that I believe that there are Stages, just like in the grieving process, so to in a sort of a life actualization process, there are stages. So I feel that one of the most crucial stages I mean they're all Important because they're all- necessary but one of these stages that are crucial is acceptance.
Speaker 1:Can I accept?
Speaker 3:this, too, has a place and value in my journey. Yes, and that's why, as I was sort of completing, graduating the stage of Resentment and frustration and with my father and how could you do this to me? And I did all this because of you, right, eventually, when that stage passed, I then found myself confronted with the next stage. Can I also cherish what happened?
Speaker 2:Because that, too, brought me to where.
Speaker 3:I am today.
Speaker 2:Can you name something that you resented and then cherished?
Speaker 3:my wife.
Speaker 2:Wow, oh, whoa, did not see that coming.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, igor, what a bomb didn't see that coming.
Speaker 3:No, I thought today we're keeping it real.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, we appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3:So my teachers, my mentors, my parents, um deep moment. I'm gonna call them moments, moments of deep internal struggle, of loving them, respecting them, because you know, it was on the line, my existence was on the line. And when you're authentic, that's right, your existence right, and when we touch those places in ourselves and it's survival time. It's very hard to be there for others. It's very hard to recognize their place until all of it sort of recalibrates settles down, and then we could say, whoa, now I know why those people are here, and why I now will love them for having been their only journey.
Speaker 1:And I just want to thank you because I don't know if you, what you just did is. You have totally normalized the like, the dual experience of and maybe it's not at the same time, but those experiences of you will have resentment toward people in your life, people that you love. Those things will happen right and also there is always the opportunity for acceptance, forgiveness, for those things to take place as well, because when you sort of lift my wife, my mentors, my you know, all the, my dad, all these different people, it's like, oh yeah, we all have some of that, we all experience because we're all human.
Speaker 3:I can't tell you how many times that we sat in a couple of sessions and I or my wife would say something along the following lines we would be walking closer and closer to vulnerable experiences. And then one of us would say I hate you right now, and the other one would say why? Because I'm afraid that what I'm about to share, I'm afraid what will you do with this? And then we would know that when we will share, we will get on the other side of this and it will only bring us closer together.
Speaker 3:But there's no way to avoid, but to walk through it.
Speaker 2:Not if we want to have real connection. When I was in high school, I had a pretty eccentric Latin teacher. He would make us translate, like old Latin poetry, and there's, like this poem, this poem from Catullus and I can't remember how old it is, but you know it's in Latin, so it's pretty old, and it's called Odietamo. It's like a two verse poem and it's literally I love you and I hate you, odietamo and and or I hate you and I love you. Rather, and it always stuck out to me, even from high school, that like this is a universal human experience and the people whom we love the most are also the people we have the capacity to hate the most. And that's always intertwined. It's like an intensity of emotion and of emotion because, like you are so important to me and how you make me feel about myself is so vital that if you're not giving me everything I need, I resent you for, like, drying up the well. Essentially, yeah, and I think that's your Clive.
Speaker 3:Clive once said to me I hate you, please don't leave me oh that's a book that is awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah yeah, yeah. Ego. Were you able to? Did you ever have these conversations with your father in retrospect?
Speaker 3:There was one time I attempted a conversation with him, it went sideways terribly, there was no receptivity, and it what it did though again, it was just not a gift on a journey, and because what it did is, it showed me I need to process and accept in a real way, versus accept based on him making my world better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what a real life. Yeah, what a real life playing out of the original dynamic that made you that really like you had this like a weakening moment or like coming to know yourself moment, like that's almost like it happened in real time.
Speaker 2:You know you mentioned before we started recording that your family's from the former Soviet Union and frankly, it's not a place of the world I understand like all too much, but what I do know is the clients I've met whose parents are from the former Soviet Union. There is very there seems to be very little conversation about emotions or the importance of emotions. Or the expression and it's like we got out and get your job done.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Can you speak to the other one? Yeah?
Speaker 3:sure, I just think very broad strokes. What I would tell you is, you know, when we talk about sort of an idea of a collective social trauma when people are living in an environment, that if you're growing up in America, it's nearly impossible to get someone to fully appreciate what this is like. To wake up every day and live in an environment where you don't know who will disappear today, who will be arrested, who will be accused of something we do know. Can I call my lawyer, please, and have my rights read to me? You just disappear and what it does is, if you talk about reptilian brain, it puts people as a collective into completely reptilian existence.
Speaker 3:So how are you going to be accessing emotions, Are you going to access a life of creativity when you are constantly just trying to survive? And that's what it produces. It produces a population of, you know, quasi half depressed, dysfunctional human beings who are high performers in you know. That's where I would always joke and say like, oh, the Russians, yeah, there must be engineers. And, by the way, notice how interesting fields that have nothing to do with emotions, fields that have nothing to do with accessing those creative, playful energies that are part of being a human being. They're accessing the brain, the prefrontal cortex. The rest is cut off. And that, for sure, was my experience, and it's kind of ironic because people was joking to me like you know I was. I have a musical part to me. I played a trumpet when I was in high school and college and when I mentioned certain things we were like well, didn't you become a computer scientist?
Speaker 3:I'm like no, I didn't. In fact, you know Jigels asked me earlier about sort of the journey. You know I went, grew up in Brooklyn, came to America. I was 11, grew up in Brooklyn, went to public schools, went to one of the city universities in New York and only then I was like you know what? I think I want to be a professor in college, love to teach. I really enjoyed. I was a tutor in college where I was at school and I was like I think I would like to teach and I enrolled in PhD program in UCLA. I had a full scholarship and I was like that's it.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm 23, like I'm bright pastures on their way, and all of a sudden I was like wait a second, something's really missing right now in my life and that, you know, kind of began my own journey and just personal spiritual realms, and I totally re-oriented it. I was like, okay, I'm going to go to law school. And then, you know, find myself in law school, I graduate, I start working, and then you know, then sort of giving you very quick jumps but fast forward, and then you know, seven years later my wife was inviting me to therapy and there was a therapy and I'm like can we do a big do-over now? As I accessed all of this past and processed and thought about what was driving the decisions.
Speaker 2:So many people who like want the do-over and because there are no true do-overs, they also don't do like the reset. How could you, how did you allow yourself to do the reset knowing there's no do-over? You're not going back to 23,. You know there's a sunk cost fallacy, almost Like I can have a good career as a lawyer, I can bribe over my kids. Like how do you risk that for pursuing your passion?
Speaker 3:So this is going to take us into, in my opinion, to a probably fairly complex conversation. Looking back at my own journey, what I would say now to people or somebody who reached out to me for input you know, advice, perspective is I would say that if you're finding yourself in a place where you're like, wait, I'm, at this point in my life I'm supposed to sort of like I said sunk cost, Like I'm supposed to sort of discard all of this and now move on, that question itself, I think, is what creates the paralysis to not move forward, and I believe that that question is the wrong question To me. The way I reoriented away from that question and I think this is ultimately will touch the piece you want to know about the intuitive decision making. For me, the question came to clarity into the following form what am I supposed to do with my life now? Not what should I do with my life now, Because I did this for 10 years.
Speaker 3:Because I went to school, because I have these student loans, and instead the question became if I have today, what am I supposed to do with today?
Speaker 2:So how did you get to the question of now?
Speaker 3:The way I got this question is oh man, this is good. Wow, now that you're asking it, I'm actually remembering. Oh okay, I have to tell you this. So you guys will decide. If you want to shred it, do whatever you want to do, but I have a feeling you're gonna love this, it's 2014. I'm at my second law firm and on Wednesday I'll never forget this On Wednesday in August July I have this feeling I'm gonna get fired. Don't ask me. Talk about intuition, by the way.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna get fired.
Speaker 3:Friday, the managing person in the office, who's not an attorney, was just itself part of the problems that I saw in the firm and I became vocal about the things I felt were. There were ethical issues and I became vocal. That's why I started becoming concerned. Friday surely enough calls me to the office in the morning. It says today's your last day. I'll never forget it. I looked at her, I smiled and I got up and I went to my office, put all my stuff in the box like literally like a movie scene, walked to my car and went home.
Speaker 3:A month later, August 1st 2014, I opened my own law firm. Now, why am I telling you this? Two years later, I get a phone call from the named partner of the law firm and says hey, Igor, it's me, Do you remember me? I said, yeah, Now, I had no problems with this person. He wasn't involved, which, again, was part of the problem. And he says to me I'm closing the firm and I'm being investigated by the ethics committee. Can you be my lawyer? Oh my gosh, oh, and I defend I have a chance everywhere.
Speaker 1:My head feels like, like.
Speaker 3:It feels like my hair is sticking up on my neck, oh my goodness, and I represented this lawyer in front of the New York State grievance committee in the case. And when I reflect on that moment, do you imagine in my darkest moment? I'm fired, I have three kids. I'm driving home like honey. I don't know how I'm gonna break this news to you. It's Friday. I'm driving home To waking up two years later and be like I'm representing the guy in front of the grievance committee. I could have been sitting next to him in that seat If the person who I at that moment hated, who fired me, turned out to be my salvation.
Speaker 3:So talk about stepping back and allowing ourselves to see a bigger picture of life. Right, talk about stepping back, but anyway. So now to tell you the following. So there's that month window where I'm like what am I going to do? I start my own firm. I don't have enough clients, I don't have a book of business. What am I going to do?
Speaker 3:And during that month, I started jogging on the boardwalk. We lived in Farakoy, new York. We lived very close to the ocean and I was like I got to start running again. I start running and I go on YouTube and I'm like let me find some inspirational videos. And first thing pops up Les Brown. Who the heck is Les Brown? I have no idea.
Speaker 3:I just press play and I start running and all of a sudden I just hear a voice of somebody who was speaking to my soul. It wasn't like all right, you know, I got to sign up for Tony Robbins date with Destiny. Let me try to. It wasn't like that. It was just like let me just click on something and the universe somehow decided to line it all up for me and I start running and I start listening to them every single day, and just the messages he kept saying. I was like this is me, I need this. And one of the things he was saying I mean there's many amazing messages, but one of them simply was that message was will you just be some someone that passes through this world and you're forgotten, or will the world remember why you came this way? And I asked myself why did I come this way? Why am I here? And all of a sudden, with that pressure of the student loans, and you know, that's it I've made myself a path.
Speaker 3:I'm a lawyer. Now it began to ease its grip on me and I was able to allow myself to introduce a new question but why am I here at this moment? What impact am I supposed to make at this moment? And is my current toolbox cut out for the journey where I am now? And then I started being able to say to myself wait a second, I don't think I can do with what I have, what I want to do next.
Speaker 1:And tangibly we're talking about like a lot of degree right, and those kinds of things. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And as I was able to loosen that grip of that's it, my fate has been decided for me. You better stick with law till you retire, because that's what you've decided to do. I was able to let go of that grip, let it sort of hover in the background and now start asking the new although scary but new and important questions like what am I supposed to do now? And what began to slowly surface. Was this internal conversation meant to make an impact in the world? I can make an impact in the world, great. How am I going to do this?
Speaker 1:That's extraordinary. Can you just tell our listeners how roughly, how old you were when you went for that run that?
Speaker 3:run was when I was 34 years old and about eight years later. Imagine this, eight years later, of running and I'm still running.
Speaker 3:Eight years later that here I am sitting in December, god willing, will graduate in my master's program as marriage family therapist and then, hopefully, will pursue a PhD. I already have two subjects that I'm very passionate to explore more about on the PhD level and in the world of relationships. I can give you a sneak preview One is self-esteem and one is religious trauma, and both of these subjects is what's already hovering for me.
Speaker 2:And then, how old would you be when you're starting the PhD?
Speaker 3:Theoretically, I would be 43.
Speaker 1:I think, that's important for our listeners. So that story, really it just shows so many different moments where you made some really important decisions that, for lack of a better way of putting it like almost didn't feel like it came from you. You know, like it just was, like it was almost like you were being guided, or I use a phrase there, so just use it yesterday and therapy with a client where I said it's like you're being carried. You know that's right.
Speaker 3:So you know what I would add to that. I would describe it as a partnership. The role that I played and this I think for listeners would be important to understand, the role that I played in my own journey was getting out of my own way to allow myself to become a vessel that could receive that deeper wisdom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the wisdom entered Once I let go of the ego.
Speaker 3:once I let go of agenda, what will others think it's all ego? And when you're able to just say to the ego look, you're going to have to step aside. I need a few moments of truth with myself.
Speaker 3:I need this to be, you know, to be put aside. Then things began to answer, and one thing I want to tell you, by the way, is I didn't fly off the handle and close the firm. The firm is still open. So for those who want to know like, well, but practically it's like what am I going to do? So, for example, in my own journey, what I did is just to show you how zoomed in I became on my dream. Once it came to clarity, I took my own pay, cut my own, because I own the firm and I hired an associate attorney to offload my case load and let him sort of take over and manage the firm. So I could take bigger step back and I was then able to focus responsibly on pursuing my passion. And so the firm is still open and I still have sort of residual income from it while I'm building my relationship, coaching and got well therapy practice.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I love, love that you, that you bring up this, these two or three factors that I hear all the time. But I had all I have all these student loans. But I put in, I invested all of this time getting this degree, all these, oh, it's just okay. Well, what am I going to do with today?
Speaker 3:That's right. And that question is what I found sort of took me down that elevator into the depth of the internal demons and dragons that needed to be slayed, which is and if I do this, these people criticize me, if I did this I won't have approval anymore from my parents and if I do that, that people will think I'm crazy. I was able to kind of slice through fear, all these things I had to slice through, until I finally could get to that really core question of I'm in the world right now. What is my purpose? Why am I here?
Speaker 1:now.
Speaker 3:And the only thing that kept coming to me was you're now in the world to play some small role in healing it. And I asked so how will I do that? What little mark will Igor make in this world? And to me, all roads pointed to the phone. Here's the irony. Maybe all those years you spent as a lawyer are meant to serve you now as well.
Speaker 2:And they will serve in the new capacity.
Speaker 1:This is so incredible. And but for those of, for those people who are listening to our podcast, who really can't see you, right, whether you know, because maybe they're not local to you or maybe they don't have the budget, the budget for it, what, what, what can you leave our audience with around? What they can do on their own to nourish, nurture their own relationships?
Speaker 3:So Harvel Hendricks and Helen Honda, the founders of a model therapy, wrote a series of books. One of the books is now working on the relationship. It's great books, each one filled with exercises as you go through the chapters. They wrote a book on how to do parenting and then they wrote a book for singles, and so I would highly recommend looking at two books Getting the Love you Want and Keeping the Love.
Speaker 3:You Find One of them. I don't remember it now off the top of my head. One of them is for singles and it's a fantastic read. I went through it very carefully after I've done all the work with my wife, just to see kind of what would it be like to be recommending it, and it really takes you on this really awesome roller coaster journey into your childhood. It has all kinds of surveys and questions for you to really explore and for those who just kind of want to develop more self-awareness, as they right now want to take advantage of their single time as singles and to understand themselves better and through that experience also be able to really bring to more clarity when I do want to date, when I'm ready for a relationship, if I want to pursue one, what things now I could have in my consciousness and therefore just make a more quality decisions than sort of stumble and fumble through relationships and hope I get the right one. So I would highly recommend those.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And then also, you have your own podcast, as I mentioned. So so, where can, where can our listeners find you?
Speaker 2:It's completely your time now, Igor. Tell us about your podcast, your practices, anything anyone should go for. Let's hear the pitch.
Speaker 3:Ok. So the podcast is called the Dating, marriage and Divorce Conversations. You could find that on Spotify and on Apple. I basically talk about everything through. You know every, every phase of somebody's relationship life. It's great content. The episodes are meant to be 15 to 30 minutes long. I have a few sort of outliers that are much longer, but most episodes are shorter for a reason. They tend to be very on point, not dense, but very on point, very just kind of powerful encounters with subjects that I just find are constantly recurring themes in the realm of relationships.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, that's so exciting that people can find yeah, yeah, and usually people listeners, I regularly get all kinds of feedback like all out, that I really needed to hear that, or wow, I never heard that. Thank you for crystallizing the concept and helping me see how this is playing out in my relationships, like these are very typical feedbacks that I received. So the content the podcast for sure is great content in that regard and you know, today I pretty much focus on doing relationship work and today most couples that work with me work with me in sort of one or two tracks either.
Speaker 3:it's sort of come as you wish basis. So you know somebody wants a session, they reach out to me, they schedule something and we just do like a one off. And then there's couples who come in who really want to do like a deep dive experience, and the more I was getting those requests, the more what sort of crystallized for me is what I call a 12 week program, which is like a really immersive experience. We kind of go through 12 pillars dimensions that I find are like the main stays of relationships and offer all sorts of sort of background support. I usually form like little WhatsApp groups with each couple so they could kind of access me throughout the week. In between sessions I give them homework assignments and it's sort of meant to be. I call it give me three months for the rest of your life versus sort of touch and go.
Speaker 3:Is this virtual?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and or in person yeah. So people who are local.
Speaker 3:I'm mostly in Phoenix, arizona, so people who are local like to come into the office. But at this point I have couples around the country and most people aren't Zoom and again, what I find awesome is that they're talking to each other. So my absence, you know, physically from the room, I believe you know, does not take so much away, you know, from their relational experiences, because, at the end of the day, they're talking to each other. I'm just facilitating their experiences.
Speaker 2:And if any of our listeners are interested in your services, how can they find you?
Speaker 3:I mean, the easiest would be email Igorigor at relationshipreimaginedcom. The email is usually the easiest and we'll put that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And my phone is also easy. People, what's happening? All the time it's a 646-725-8081. People are welcome to reach out to me that way as well.
Speaker 1:I feel so grateful for this conversation. Yeah for sure. I don't even have. I'm like a little bit even speechless, and people that know me really well are kind of like you don't have any words, yeah it's just incredible. So thank you for even just gosh your openness and your willingness not just to come on the podcast. Just like in life in general, it's just like you're such a refreshing human being.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And your clients are really are in really good hands with you.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, fantastic this is.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad to have met you. I am so excited to keep in touch with you.
Speaker 3:Sure, it's so nice to meet you. Also, surprise, we're friends, that's right. Love it, love it.
Speaker 1:Nothing like fellow travelers. Yeah, that's right, it's incredible. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. We appreciate it Very good. We want to thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If anything in today's episode spoke to you, please like subscribe, rate and review. Also, don't forget to share this podcast with friends and family.
Speaker 1:And if there's anybody that you know that you think would be a great guest on intuitive choices, please email us at intuitivechoicespodcast at gmailcom. Finally, if you want to know more about our mental health practice, intuitive counseling and wellness, please check us out at intuitivecounselingofphillycom.