Discover why relationships end. Sven Erlandson will show you how to make your relationships powerful by crushing your limiting beliefs. Life-changing soul counseling to unleash your best, most powerful self with Sven Erlandson, father of the spiritual but not religious movement.
In this transformative journey, Erlandson can incorporate the wisdom of the tarot, a tool that unveils hidden truths and innermost desires. The tarot cards, often seen as mirrors reflecting our deepest fears and aspirations, become a gateway to understanding the complexities of human relationships. Rooted in ancient symbolism, these cards can guide us towards a profound awareness of our emotions and desires. When delving into the tarot, seekers often encounter symbols that echo the concept of earth angels meaning, representing individuals who exude kindness, compassion, and unconditional love.
One can learn to identify and cherish those earth angels who bring warmth and understanding into their lives. This recognition, along with a heightened sense of self-awareness, forms a potent foundation for fostering connections that are not only deep-rooted but also spiritually enriching.
Connect with Sven https://www.badasscounseling.com
Grab’s Sven’s bestselling book – https://amzn.to/3ZQRpTR
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Bert Martinez: What makes a relationship happy. We’re gonna get into that. Sven, welcome to the show.
And so first of all, I wanna talk about Just your overall thought on therapy because you obviously are coming from a different angle because first of all, Your business is badass counseling. So talk about where you come from as far as how you see therapy.
Sven Erlandson: I think therapy can be a really effective tool in people’s lives. I’m a big believer in it. I, however, was in a 12 year suicidal depression back in my twenties, And, you know, it was almost 30 years ago actually, it was 30 years ago.
And, I just couldn’t find a therapist that worked for me long term, so I had to figure out my own way through it. And it took me years. I read about a thousand books from self help to philosophy to theology to spirituality to new age to anything that would help.
And I took bits and pieces here and found my own way out, and as a result, because I had already sort of been in the counseling field, I’m a former clergyman, And I I one thing morphed into the next before you knew it, I had my own counseling practice based on not the stuff that I had learned in books, but the stuff that I had used on myself, and I began to develop those tools more and more, and it’s a much more aggressive approach.
Not aggressive as in hurtful, but, for instance, I require all new clients to write an autobiography for me before we even start. I’ll spend 2 to 3 hours studying that before we even have our 1st meetings that we hit the ground running. The 1st session is always a minimum of 4 hours or a maximum of 6 hours.
I don’t do 1 hour sessions. All follow-up sessions are a minimum of 2 hours, maximum of 4 hours because and and my practice presently is in Manhattan, New York City.
I have clients around the world, but the people I deal with, and I actually think most people want this, People don’t want results a year from now or 3 years from now. 50 minutes once a week is a model that’s been used forever, and there are a lot of people that that works for. I have no beef with it. It doesn’t work for me.
I believe people want results now, and I believe that they’re willing to go deep. It’s a scary thing. Boy, I get I hear all the time from people. Boy, I can’t sit still for 4 hours, let alone 6. How is this gonna work?
And, Well, by the time we get to the end of the session, they’re like, holy shit. Where did the time go? But it enables me to go much deeper, much more quickly. On top of the fact that I have their life story from their autobiography before we, before they even darken my door or my Zoom account. And so We can move very, very quickly and go very deep.
And so mine is an approach based on one fundamental belief.
Well, several, but not the least of which is that the decisions we make in life are very often driven by or in compensation for this, and to look at them and identify them, and it’s very scary stuff.
I have clients who are CEOs down in Wall Street. I have had more military war veterans, Special ops people that I could even begin to count. And invariably, invariably, without exception, I hear, Sven, this is the scariest shit I’ve ever done in my entire life, and they’ve done 6, 7, 8 tours, whatever, in war because they’re going down to that childhood stuff, and they’re beginning to see not only what they were taught about themselves and about the world.
But the implications, the fact that I was taught these things. So it’s a much much more aggressive approach, but in a loving way, in a very, very kind way. And I’m there to bring love to my clients, but to sort of battle with the demons inside of them. And it doesn’t work for everybody.
It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but for the people in life who are very intense and and or who just want results faster rather than later, it works.
Bert Martinez: I love it. Well, what I like about your approach is the fact that I think most people that I know that have gone through therapy, including myself, think that 50 minutes is a nonstarter because, you know, you’re starting, you know, you’re starting to work through. I mean, Maybe the last 10 minutes of that 50 minutes, you’re starting to be okay. I’m feeling comfortable with the situation. I wanna talk about this.
Because as humans, we’re always dealing with junk inside of us, and it takes a few minutes to Be vulnerable and to be okay. I’m going to talk about this thing. And then right as you get comfortable, oh, time’s up. We’ll see you in a week.
Sven Erlandson: And that first half hour, the first 40 minutes or the entire session is often spent talking about what’s happened in my past week. So it becomes extraordinarily difficult to go very, very deep into the real shit driving the whole equation.
And in terms of being vulnerable and developing trust, I get clients, you know, even with me, this the 6 hour initial session and then a few follow-up sessions. So we may be 3, 4, 5 weeks down the road, and they’ve done 12, 14, 16 hours with me now, and now they’re trusting. Okay. And this is intensive. Now they’re opening up.
Now it’s like they feel comfortable Really divulging the notion of eliciting a deep level of trust in 50 minute segments. Christ, that would take months months months. And let alone, what are you gonna do with the weekly stuff? And, you know, you gotta address that, and then how are you ever gonna go back to that old stuff. So for me personally, and again, there are plenty of therapists who I’m sure make it work well. So I’m not disparaging the industry. I’m a big believer in the industry. The 1 hour model or the 50 minute model or very often, it’s 45 minutes. For me, it’s just like, no fucking way. No. Thank you.
Bert Martinez: I love your way better already. Again, that 1 hour session, however you split it, 45 minutes, 50 minutes, 5 minutes. People are just getting started warming up. They’re starting to open up and then it’s time to go. To me, it’s a broken system. I prefer your system better already because Minimum, you need a couple of hours just to really lay the cards on the table.
And maybe if you’re lucky, you can identify, I’ve identified this one thing. Can you help me with it? And what’s interesting also listening to you is when you look at the books you mentioned, thousands of books. When you look at the self help industry, The personal development industry, whatever you wanna call it, I wanna say a huge segment of that industry is based on finding that limiting belief, Extracting that limiting belief and replacing it with more empowering beliefs. Right? That’s the whole crux of the whole self help, personal development genre.
And for most people, it takes some years. I mean, I I hear people all the time where they’ve read, again, 100, if not thousands of books, and there’s just they don’t feel they’re better off or they’re maybe slightly better off, and I think a lot of it is because they haven’t yet identified like you said the programming that was crammed into that wet cement, and for a lot of us, it just takes forever. Alright. So let me ask you this. In one of your Tik Tok’s, let me see if I can if I have the skill set to bring it up:
“So here’s a fucked up little nugget for you. You wanna know one of the single biggest determinants of whether you’ll be unhappy or happy in your relationships is? Over 30 years of counseling people, and this is all types of relationships. This is boss, subordinate, friend to friend, lover to lover. It boils down to simply this. How do you Find strength. And I know you’re looking at me thinking, what the fuck does the how you define strength have to do with happiness in a relationship? It’s simply this. Those that are unhappy in relationships Generally define strength as the ability to take it. I can take it.
Oh, I can endure more. I can endure more versus the people who are happy in relationships. Define strength as the ability and courage to stand up and say no. To stand up when things are wrong, when they’re being treated well when their needs, wants, and feelings are being minimized versus just taking it and eating the other person’s shit and making it all about their wants, needs, feelings, patience. So which camp do you fit into, the unhappy or the happy? And at what point do you realize, holy shit. Maybe I need to change my definition of strength.” – Sven Erlandson
Bert Martinez: Talk about this strength, this idea that our happiness is based on strength. How did you come up with this idea?
Sven Erlandson: I just experienced that so much of my work is about helping victims of their own past. Fine. Begin to develop a life that actually makes them happy, and so much of what so many people have been conditioned to do is take it and take it and take it, and that love means giving, giving, giving this much, hoping I’ll get this much love in return because that’s what they’ve been conditioned to believe is normal in their childhood where all they can expect. It was what they were taught. Either it was modeled for them or was explicitly stated, you don’t matter. I matter. You need to give love to me. So then when these people walked into adulthood, I was this way. This was me in my 1st marriage.
When you walk into adulthood, you’re giving, giving, giving, just hoping to get some in return.
The problem is that very often, that person, what I call the extreme giver, ends up with an extreme taker. Someone who’s happy to take and take and take because of their own conditioning and their terror of opening up and giving.
Some people call narcissist. I call them extreme takers. And so what has to happen is the person who is the extreme giver over years, over decades in marriages, that in a marriage that they they’re they’re taking so much shit, and they think they have to because they’ve been condition to believe that’s all I’m worth or that’s all I can expect, or I’m too terrified to leave and find something better.
And so what has to shift inside of them is this belief that strength is determined by how much I can endure, and instead, strength ultimately is the courage to put your feelings out there and not back down. To stand up for your needs, to say no. And I get so many clients saying, well, Sven, I do stand up. I say, yeah, but the problem is you back down.
To truly stand up, to find your no is to stand up and not back down, and that’s a different type of strength because it’s scary.
Some people excel at metaphorically taking punches to the face, but it’s a whole different type of strength to stand up and throw the punch metaphorically speaking. And say, no. You cannot treat me this way because the terror is that they’ll walk away or that they’ll push back or that they’ll say, no.
Your needs don’t matter, which is precisely the message you’ve been getting your whole life. Your needs don’t matter. And it’s so painful to be reminded of that message.
And so what ultimately has to happen, what invariably has to happen is that the pain of taking it and taking it and taking it and taking it has to get so bad that you finally get so sick of it that you find your no.
The pain, in fact, begins becomes your greatest teacher and your and your greatest motive. Not just teachers, really, you’re motivated. You just are sick of it. I’m not gonna take it anymore. And that’s when lives began to change. And I always tell people, you really don’t have to force your change.
You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to say, oh, I gotta get the gumption to stand up for this person. I always tell them, if you’re not ready, you’re not ready, and that’s okay.
But here’s the thing, your pain is going to get worse. It is. This shit doesn’t magically heal itself, and it’s gonna get bad to the point where eventually you do find the strength that what I call the fucking point, where just yesterday, it was like, oh, should I? Shouldn’t I? I don’t know. And then you reach a point where the pain gets so bad, you just say, fuck. I don’t even care anymore. I’m gonna do it. You have a strength you didn’t have yesterday. You have a clarity you didn’t have yesterday.
Bert Martinez: You know, that reminds me of a man, the first of all, listening to you, I’m thinking, you just described, I wanna say, the average mom. Right? Moms put themselves at the bottom of the list, and they give and they give and they give, and there’s this almost tacit, agreement or, I don’t know, this idea that in order for you to be a mom, you you have to be on it all the time, and you can’t take any time away.
You know, you can’t you know, you’re a bad mom if you decide to have some me time. That has changed over the last couple of decades, but it’s still kind of foreign. I still meet a lot of moms that put so, alas, they’re in that extreme giving mode, and this idea that, they’re less than if they decide to start.
Giving some getting some or, yeah, giving themselves some time or some, what do you call it, Self love. And then the other thought about this idea of strength as a veteran yourself, you know, I work with several veterans groups, and I’m thinking there is, again, this implication in our veterans and even our our active soldiers to take it and take it and take it. To do or die kind of a situation, and there’s a lot of veterans out there that need help, that should be getting help, but they feel as though it’s weak to ask for help.
I mean, this idea that strength is taken is having enough nerve to say, hey. I’m not gonna take this anymore. This is what I deserve either in the boss employee relationship, in the marriage relationship, in whatever relationship.
I love this idea that if you’re really a strong person, then you’re going to stand up for yourself. You don’t have to be rude about it, but we’ve seen the headlines when somebody takes it. I’ll just use an extreme case where you have these women who were abused for years, and they finally explode. They can’t take it anymore. What do they do? They kill their husband. And so I’m using that as an extreme example, but, you know, from one extreme to the other, this idea of strength is incredible. It is something that I’ve never thought of, But it makes total sense.
Sven Erlandson: And in the end in any relationship, Obviously, it’s some of both. I mean, there is, in any relationship, I’m not always gonna get all my needs met all the time or it’s not always about me, and so there is give and take.
But, yeah, it’s that willingness to stand up for my own needs. And as you mentioned, with regard to veterans or with regard to mothers or and its fathers too or and it’s and it’s not even just in the parenting, it’s in the relationship, that undergirds the parenting, and that’s the marriage or, that created the family. It’s the belief that my need in the end, it’s gotta become the belief that my needs matter, but what leads up to that? The reason people are eating it and eating it and taking it and taking it is ultimately, it’s always fear. It’s always fear. They’ve been terrified of standing up for their own needs. You know, in your example, the wife slash mother, terrified that if I stand up for what I want, you may not like me.
You may walk away. You may give me backlash. Or in the case of the veteran or or many people, who become our soldiers and sailors and airmen and so forth. They’ve been so conditioned to believe that their worth is found in serving other people, and that can be very powerful conditioning, and that’s not a bad thing to a degree. It’s not an effective model for relationships. It’s not an effective model even for parenting, or and especially marriages is, yes, there’s the taking it. Yes. No doubt about it.
But if you’re not replenishing, if you’re not refilling your gas tank, if you ultimately don’t matter. You’re gonna become so miserable, and this is why, you know, in working with veterans and soldiers and so forth, so many of them, it takes until their thirties, their forties, their especially forties, but it takes a Wow. That old belief system of just being strong all the time, and I can take it, I can take it, and I need to serve everyone else all the time. It has to get beaten down by life.
And I always tell people the soul is more powerful than the will. Every 20 year old, a lot of 30 year olds think, well, I’ll just power through it. But, talk to that same guy in his forties or his fifties or that same tough woman in her fifties, and let’s see how strong that willpower is. That’s why I get so many go, yeah, I get young people too, but they still think they can power through things.
But the pains that the core beliefs that were pushed into the wet cement to your soul, the shit you were taught about yourself, the rocks, that 500 pound bag of rocks on your back, All the stuff that’s been inflicted upon you over the course of a lifetime. You may be strong enough to carry it when you’re 20, but do that for 20 more years, then tell me then tell me about your willpower.
So these young guys in their thirties giving advice to these young even younger guys in their twenties and teens It’s like, give it some time. Let’s see how tough you are in your mid forties or your early fifties, and now you’ve got, you know, all sorts of different elements.
But you’ve got all that pain weighing down on you from inside, and so it’s a different element. And that’s why, very often life just has to break us. Yes. When we begin, that’s when we become humble, but more importantly, that’s when we open to the notion that I want help. Not just I need help, but I want help. I can’t do it by myself, and be open to new belief systems, about ourselves and about life.
And, unfortunately, sometimes we have to be broken by life before we’re truly supple, truly ready to take on a new way of thinking.
Bert Martinez: What’s the old saying? When the student is ready, the teacher will appear? And one of the things that just came to mind is I can’t remember what I studied, but there’s a study out there. I don’t know if it’s a full blown study, but there was an article I read many years ago that the average person becomes free of their hang ups or most of their hang ups, meaning they finally stop giving a crap about what other people think about them between the 30 fives and forties. Right? When life has beaten you down long enough where you say, fuck it. I don’t care anymore.
Sven Erlandson: Yeah. That is the mid thirties age, and I’ve written on this before, but I’m not the originator of the concept. But, Yeah. It very often happens then. It’s not limited to then. It can happen earlier. Very often, it happens much later. I have clients in their sixties and seventies struggling with that exact same thing.It depends on how powerfully it was pressed into them, as children. But, yeah, a lot of times, that’s when life sorta starts to catch up and take its toll. Yeah.
Bert Martinez: Let me ask you this. What do you say to people who or maybe they’re struggling with depression, but they don’t know why. I mean, on paper, they have a great life. A nice you know, they have a great marriage, great job, and a great one. You know, on paper, they look good, but they’re depressed. What do you say to somebody Who’s depressed, and they cannot figure out why?
Sven Erlandson: That’s 99% of my clients. Depressed or anxiety driven or both, and they don’t know why. I tell them the same thing. I tell them all the same thing, and, it undergirds, you know, most of my work. You have fears, pains, and BS beliefs you’ve been taught about yourself deep inside of yourself, and you either can’t see them or you can see them and you’re fucking running as fast as you can to get away from them.
And until it’s, it’s like this tidal wave of all that crap that’s chasing you and you’re running, running, running, or you’re medicating yourself, you know, gambling, cheating, Pills, booze, overworking, overparenting, over creating chaos around you. Anything to keep your focus off of that tidal wave because if I stop, It’ll wash over me, and until you actually turn into it, until you actually go into the pain, the fears, and the bullshit beliefs you’ve been taught about yourself, you’ll be fucking miserable. That’s what depression is.
Fundamentally, what depression is, it’s all the pains that were inflicted on you and, especially all the BS beliefs you’re talking about yourself that are packed down on top of your authentic voice, your original, true self rising up from within.
So it’s like a little baby robin in the nest with its mouth open, and mama robin comes in and jams that fucking worm down there. So these messages have been jammed down your throat while your own soul has been trying to come up its whole life with your authentic voice. And those 2 things meet, and that grating, that’s creating that anxiety. That’s creating that depression. It’s like tectonic plates below the surface. Well, what happens when 2 opposing messages underneath the surface grate against each other, it’s earthquakes on the surface, and you can hold that shit down. You can control that shit on the surface for a while, maybe even a few decades, But eventually, that pain, the soul always wins, and it will grow, and it will take over your life.
So that’s why where I am in Manhattan I’ve had practice for 30 years, the last 10 years in Manhattan. I have clients from Washington DC to Hollywood to around the world, New York City, Wall Street, who have it all. They have it all a thousand , and they can’t figure out why they’re fucking miserable inside or why their son wants nothing to do with them or why they’ve lost, you know, 3 marriages or whatever it is or why they’ve blown up their career.
And it’s the shit inside that they’ve tried to run from. And at some time, at some point, you gotta face that shit, and people don’t want to. And that’s why some clients, When I take them down quickly, whether it’s in the 1st session or the 2nd session or the 3rd session, some bolt. They don’t want to. It’s too scary, but that’s why I always tell people, and I’m not doing the work.
When we’re in session, if I’ve had a great session with the client, I always tell them, I didn’t do the work. I just asked the questions. You did the work, and I know how scary this shit is. I was in a 12 year suicidal depression. I’ve got the 9 inch scars up my arms to prove it. I know how scary this stuff is. It’s terrifying to go down here and to look at the messages that they were forced down and why they were forced down your throat and whose agenda and why that was their agenda and very and that’s when belief systems start to explode. That’s when they begin to see mom for who she really was or dad for who she he wasn’t or whatever it might be, and it’s terrifying, but that’s where life begins.
There’s that great quote from the movie, The Natural with Robert Redford and Glenn Close. And Glenn Close’s character turns to Robert Redford’s character and says, we each get 2 lives. The life we learned from and then the life we live. And it’s at that juncture. It’s not just enough to say fuck it, and I’m gonna move forward. That until all that shit, all the pain, fear, and bullshit beliefs you’ve been taught about yourself, until those are out of you, you’re still just faking it.
Bert Martinez: Man, that’s incredible. And that is one of my favorite movies. I love the Glenn Close character because she was such an anchor, such a great sounding board. She was Almost mystic with her, you know, the way she approached life. She was an awesome character in that movie. Yeah. Alright. Let’s talk about this. You have a book out. It’s doing extremely well on Amazon. There’s a Hole in My Love Cup. Talk about there’s a hole in my love cup. What inspired you to write this book?
Sven Erlandson: It’s just, about 80% of my counseling method in 1 book. What inspired me to write it is I had so many clients who were overseas, in war and, or had been or people who just, For whatever reason, couldn’t come and be my client, and so I wanted to just make it as accessible as possible. And it’s all of my theories right there in one book, not all, but about 80%.
And I wrote about 5 years ago, and it’s become a best seller and, you know, audiobook, ebook, whatever, paperback, it’s all there. We’re now getting it into a few other languages, and it’s fundamentally this, that when you are taught that you don’t matter, You don’t matter. You’re not good enough, or you’re unlovable, and or you’re not wanted. When you are taught those things, it has different effects on your love cup. We’re all going through life just trying to get our love cup filled.
And one of those messages in particular, the most powerful one has the effect They’re basically puncturing a hole in your love cup. So it doesn’t matter how fucking much love you pour into that love cup. How many people, Your lovers, friends, boss, no matter how successful you are, it’s all just draining out the bottom. And because you’ve been taught, you know, such things as you don’t matter. Well, fuck. It doesn’t matter how much love you get. So this is the person who’s always trying to hoard more and more love often from even their own children. And until that is repaired, and that hole in the log cup is driven by this belief.
So the belief systems have to be identified and changed. And, anyway, so that’s why I wrote the book to make it very accessible, and then that’s also why I’ve made about 800 plus free videos on, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and so forth to make it as accessible as possible. I worked with the homeless and lived among them, slept on concrete every night for two and a half years.
And so I’m and I’ve been very committed to helping poor people. It’s a big part of what I do, and so I just try to get as much content out there to try to help people, breaking it down into tiny little nuggets that they can that really punch them in the face and forced them to begin to and help them to begin to, pull out all the pain out of a love cup that’s been packed with shit and manure and rocks and crud, and that stuff doesn’t go off the bottom. The love goes right off the bottom, but all the crud stays right in there. And so my goal I guess I’m in the business of, washing dirty cups and repairing the bottles. That’s what I do for that.
Bert Martinez: Okay. Now when you say you were working with a homeless person, Did you were homeless for a couple years, or did or was this something that you experimented with?
Sven Erlandson: I literally it was no experiment. I literally drained my bank account, gave away all of my life possessions. And I moved to Oakland, California and said, let’s get into it. And so I literally went on the street with nothing. The clothes on my back. I think I brought a spare shirt, a spare pair of underwear, and then built my own little mini life sleeping on concrete every night two and a half years, and I just did you know, as I said, I’m a former clergyman, Lutheran pastor, and so I just did ministry by walking around. I wasn’t building any programs. I was just listening, talking, listening.
Basically, bringing my counseling skills, and this was back in my forties. You know, I’m in my mid to late fifties now, and I felt called to do it. It was insane. It was fucking ridiculous, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I’d always been active in working with homeless and runaway youth and, you know, gay, lesbian, trans, communities, especially ones where have had to leave their home because they were rejected. But then to go in and live among the homeless, it was fantastic.
And I learned so much, and our problems and our human problems are universal. There are systemic problems, hurting the poor and so on and so forth, indisputable.
But the human core human longings are universal. There’s a great quote by, what’s his name? Not Robert Fuller. What his name. He was a Harvard professor of psychology. He’s known as, you know, really the father of American psychology back in the 19 twenties. I’m not full. What the hell was his name? Anyway, he said that what is most personal is most universal. That at the deepest levels and and this is true of great art that really truly great art whether it’s music or whether it’s dance or sculpt, whatever, that it speaks so deeply. It’s the artist revealing his or her deepest self, and it resonates inside of us because, damn, that’s my experience.
We all have these universal experiences of wanting to be seen for who we really are, wanting to be accepted, Fear of getting hurt. All of these things are universal experiences, and that was one of the grand lessons that I I learned on the streets of the, you know, living on the streets. It’s like, it’s the same shit as my clients who are, you know, drawing in, you know, 9, 10 figures.
Bert Martinez: That’s incredible. I think that you’ve hit the nail on the head as far as this idea that what’s most personal is universal. That’s absolutely true, And I think this idea of, you know, fixing our love cops is also universal because, ultimately, that’s all that we want. As we wanna be loved for who we really are, not for the fake version of us.
Sven Erlandson: Right. And the challenge of being loved, I always tell people and I’ve done, you know, videos on this on TikTok and Instagram, Facebook, and so forth.
The grand challenge, we all wanna be seen for who we really are and be accepted for who we really are. And, Cameron does such a great job of that in the movie avatar. They don’t say I love you. They say I see you. I see you. We all long to be seen for who we really are and have that person stay, but the price The price of being seen for who I really am and the person’s thought is that I have to have the courage to show Who I really am? Well, now this is where we separate the men from the boys because so often people don’t want to reveal who they really are.
Why? Because they’ve been conditioned to believe their whole life that who you really are doesn’t fucking matter. I’m the parent or I’m that authority figure or who you are is bad, or your voice doesn’t matter, or your feelings, your wants don’t matter.
And so this person becomes too if they can’t even identify what their feelings, wants, needs are. If they can even do that, then the 2nd step is having the courage to put it out there when in the past they’ve been assailed, they’ve been attacked for who they really are. So while we simultaneously longed to be loved for and appreciated for it, it requires the courage and the immense courage to begin to put it out there, and that’s scary.
And especially in adulthood, not only what happened in childhood, but if you’ve been rejected in love or you’ve been cheated on or you’ve had somebody, leave you. It’s terrifying to go bump again. And this is why this notion of doing the work, whether it’s therapy or self care or whatever it is, doing a work of flushing out the pain, the fears, and the bullshit leads you’ve been taught about yourself because that’s what’s blocking you from opening up again.
Bert Martinez: Absolutely. Alright. I wanna talk about one of your other books. By the way, just to just to, give out your website here, and, of course, I would put this all in the show notes as well, it’s badass counseling.com. Right?
And you have multiple books there. One of them, which is very intriguing, is I steal wives. Talk about Why you created this book? What’s the meaning behind this title?
Sven Erlandson: Sure. My sort of greatest sin in life. The most pain that I’ve inflicted on my addiction, if you will, when I was younger and it ended in my early forties, was that I’ve been cheated on in 2 long term relationships. I cheated on 1 person in a long term relationship, and I was the person that a great many people cheated with in their relationships, a lot.
And, not proud of it, but it’s done, and I learned from it, and I began to see patterns. I was a mathematics major at an engineering university for most of my undergraduate degree, And I suck at math, but I’m pretty good at seeing patterns in my, and particularly in humans. And I began to see patterns in the people that I was cheating with who were cheating on their spouse, their lover. And not only that, because I’m a natural sort of question asker, It’s what I do or it’s what I like to do.
I find people interesting. I began to dive deeper and deeper into the people who were cheating on their spouses, and I began to see patterns there. Well, I don’t sleep with men generally. Now there’s nothing wrong with that.
So the book is fundamentally an assessment of female infidelity from the perspective of the person they’re cheating with based on the questions and patterns that I began to see. And, a few things are more under researched and underreported than female infidelity. So any numbers we have, boy, there’s not much science that’s been done on any numbers we have.
And so my insights that I believe were very credible, all case study based, personal experience based, we’re pretty fucking fascinating.
And so this is why this when I’m now in my work, with infidelity, and I do a lot of work. I specialize in a few areas. Suicide is 1. Infidelity is another 1. Cheating is another 1. And, I really because I’ve experienced this, someone who’s cheated on twice in a long term relationship, and I cheated once, and I was the one being cheated with. I’ve experienced it from all sides of the triangle, personal experience. Some unique insights in that book.
Bert Martinez: And is that book for Women? Is that book for couples? Who’s the target audience of that book?
Sven Erlandson: Well, women and men because very often, The men that I have had who wanted to read it, read it because their spouse was cheating, they feared their spouse was cheating, or they fear their spouse might cheat. The women I’ve read it, at least the ones who have reached out to me or that I’ve counseled, subsequent to their reading it, they wanna know why they’re doing it. Why am I doing this? What the hell is going on inside of me?
And one of the absolute fundamental premises of that book as well as the book you mentioned earlier, There’s a Hole in My Love Cup, is that and and I spend a chapter on this in the love cup book. It’s that any problem that occurs within a relationship within a marriage predates that relationship.
Any problem in the marriage predates that relationship. In other words, the problems that are existing in the marriage, especially cheating, are driven by factors, are driven by beliefs, pains, and fears that were incubated that were putting you long before you ever met this person. Everything is a response to that shit, especially cheating.
Bert Martinez: My mind is blown. That makes total sense because just to just hear that quote again. How did you say everything?
Sven Erlandson: Every problem that exists within a marriage predates that relationship. It doesn’t just predate the marriage like, oh, it goes back to when we were dating. No. It predates you ever even knowing that person. Everything in that relationship is a response not to that person, but to that ship from back there. It’s like, It’s like the person who, you know, twist their knee and it really fucking hurts. Okay? Or no. Let’s do something even easier.
I hit a car. I hit a curve with my car, and it knocked my alignment to my front tires out of whack. If I do not repair that, Everything, every system in my car is going to be affected. The alignment to my other tire, the wear and tear on my rear tires, My axle strength, my rods, my, pins, the fucking, gas mileage is gonna be affected, oil, Everything’s gonna be affected. Everything’s a compensation for that, and that’s just a fucking dick tire out of alignment. Right? So it’s the same way I don’t tell people that no child comes out of the womb thinking I suck. They don’t.
My brother’s wife was a neonatal nurse for 30 years. She worked at a very well known hospital in the Midwest. She’s worked with conjoined twins, children that had a vestigial tail, all men the smallest of the small babies, etcetera, and I’ve asked Amy before. Amy, what percentage of children that come out of the womb are bad? She’s like, that’s the dumbest fucking question I’ve ever heard. None of them. Oh, so no child comes out of the womb inherently bad.
That means anything, Any, belief systems, G, I suck. G, I’m no good. G, I’m not good enough.G, I’m king of the world. All of those are condition throughout that childhood, and that’s the shit that’s gonna fuck up your marriage. That’s the shit. And so they and especially it’s never more true than with cheating. That the cheater is fundamental the problem isn’t the marriage. That’s a cop out to say, oh, I cheated because you’re not giving me the love. Fuck you. You could’ve fucking quit the relationship if you’re not getting, but you chose to cheat.
No. What’s really going on is your love cup. It’s so full of dog shit and rocks and there’s a gaping hole on the bottom, and all of that goes back to way back there. But you don’t wanna look at that stuff. You just wanna get more love poured into you. You just know, it’s a classic. Everybody says narcissist, narcissist, narcissist. Everybody loves to use that phrase nowadays, but that’s what it is, and it all goes back there. And that person wasn’t born that way.
And a lot of people say, oh, a narcissist is born that no. Extreme takers are creative. They are not born that way. Anyway, we just hit about 5 different fucking points there.
Bert Martinez: Oh my gosh. Wow, I love that. That’s incredible. And you know what’s interesting? I’ve said this for years. At least in America, you have to pay a fee to get a marriage license. Right? It’s part of the deal.
What’s always impressed me is there should be some training with that license. If you and I wanna drive a car, we have to get a license and we have to have some training. Maybe it’s minimal training, but we have to pass a test to make sure that we understand how to operate the basics of that vehicle. If you wanna be a counselor, you have to have a license. There’s testing involved.
But anybody can marry anybody, pay this licensing fee and you’re good to go. And I’ve always said, man, it would be nice if the government made some kind of testing requirement, some kind of, relationship, testing, something where the couples have to sit down and at least identify some of the, what do you call it, the good, the bad, and the ugly because otherwise, they’re just wasting no. I don’t mean to say they’re wasting their time.
Otherwise, it’s gonna be a surprise. To your point, you’re walking into a relationship with all of this baggage whether you’re 20 Or 40 or 60, you’re bringing all this crap with you. You’re bringing your broken love cup.
And your new spouse has no idea. Nobody. Both couples have no idea what baggage is being brought. And so, anyway, That’s always kind of my point is that, the government, if they’re gonna make you get a license, they should have you make, you know, they should have you sit down and Please talk about finances. You know, there’s a lot out there about love languages. What are your love languages? What are your goals? Something. Anyway, that’s kind of my thought on that. We’re out of time.
I wanna thank you so much for stopping by. Some of the nuggets that you dropped, some of the Love bombs have been outstanding. My mind has been blown a couple of different times. One more time, I wanna give out your website. It’s badass counseling.com. Sven thank you so much for stopping by looking forward to having you back again, my friend.
Sven Erlandson: Thanks so much, Bert. Have a kick ass day!
