**Warning: This episode contains strong graphic language, discussions of sexual situations and it addresses sexual abuse. If you are sensitive to this subject matter, please skip this episode.**

The Rewilders are picking up the pieces after leaving listeners with a total cliffhanger in last week's episode when they had just found out from Alicia that Mateo did want to renew their rental lease. Rohini and Angus continued working with Alicia on her own. After a couple of months pass, Mateo finally reaches out to Angus to talk.

Mateo reveals to Angus painful truths about his past, for which his feelings of shame have kept him from being fully open with Alicia or anyone. Angus normalizes Mateo's emotional experience while expressing empathy and universality. Mateo begins to feel a great sense of relief. Talking about his past and how it still impacts him today proves to be a tremendous weight-off his mind.

After a couple of months apart from Alicia, Mateo feels resolute in wanting to be in a partnership, where he can be whole and honest. He wants to share everything with Alicia, but he expresses concern about what her response might look like. Angus reminds Mateo about his true nature and where his experience of life is really coming from. They discuss the spiritual truths that Mateo embodies regardless of his past, present, or future. And he checks with Mateo on whether he truly wants to be with Alicia.

Want to know how Alicia responds to Mateo after two months apart and intimate revelations are shared? Tune in next week.

This episode explores:

• When we obtain a stronger inner foundation, things we haven't addressed in the past reveal themselves. 
• The conceptual mind is an illusionist.
• Sexuality as a spectrum.
• The prevalence of sexual abuse, and yet the stigma.
• When we bring things out into the open, we annihilate shame.
• Secrets can kill us inside.
• It takes work to keep a secret and it makes us unavailable to partnership.
• Using grit and willpower to avoid facing pain can only last so long.

Show Notes
Resources for victims of sexual abuse: RAINN; NSVRC
Brené Brown Ted Talk: Listening to Shame
Glorious game of life: the spiritual truth that we're all "cut from the same cloth."

Podcast music
Rewilding Love features the music of RhythmPharm with Los Angeles based Master drummer, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Greg Ellis, born and raised in the Bay Area. Episode 14 includes selections from: Violet/Balance; Blue/Calm; Orange/Nourishment; Yellow/Clarity.

Angus & Rohini Ross are “The Rewilders.” They love working with couples and helping them to reduce conflict and discord in their relationships. They co-facilitate individualized couples' intensives that rewild relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is the author of the ebook Marriage, and they are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Angus and Rohini Ross on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about their work visit: therewilders.org.