#22 Teal's WILD Proposal Story!

In this conversation, Mark and Teal discuss personal updates, including health and experiences with single motherhood. They delve into the concept of karma, exploring how it can sometimes lead to feelings of entitlement and resentment when expectations are not met. The discussion highlights the importance of giving without strings attached and the impact of covert contracts in relationships. They also touch on the role of AI in dating and communication, sharing humorous anecdotes along the way. Teal then shares her unique proposal story, highlighting the journey of navigating conflict and compromise in their relationship, culminating in a heartfelt and unexpected proposal amidst the backdrop of New Zealand's stunning landscapes. The discussion emphasizes the importance of communication, emotional connection, and the adventures that shape Teal's love story.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:31 An Update On Teal's Health
2:01 Great News & Men From The Single Mum Experiment!
9:22 The Downside Of Karma
17:01 Teal's WILD Proposal Story!
31:33 Download Teal's FREE Empowering Meditation(s)

Download Teal's FREE Meditations! https://www.tealelisabeth.com/meditations/ 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:31 An Update On Teal's Health
• 2:01 Great News & Men From The Single Mum Experiment!
• 9:22 The Downside Of Karma
• 17:01 Teal's WILD Proposal Story!
• 31:33 Download Teal's FREE Empowering Meditation(s)

Transcript

Mark Rosenfeld (00:00.726)
The downside of karma, hope for the single mums out there and TL's proposal story. We'll see you right after this.

Mark Rosenfeld (00:12.244)
You get to go. Tail!

Teal Elisabeth (00:17.316)
How are you?

Mark Rosenfeld (00:17.45)
Hello, you're on the left hand side today, I've never seen this side you.

Teal Elisabeth (00:21.026)
What? switch it up. Your computer's just messing with you just to keep things interesting.

Mark Rosenfeld (00:22.536)
On my computer, you're on the other side, you've moved.

Mark Rosenfeld (00:28.5)
It's, it's messing with me. Your face is as lovely as ever. How are you? Are you healthy?

Teal Elisabeth (00:32.622)
Thank you. I'm slowly recovering. It's been a month of bronchitis, but I'm finally getting through it. Yeah, thank goodness. I finally got through, I had to go to the, I did all the wholesome stuff, then I went into the antibiotics, and then it still wasn't enough, and I finally just started praying to the universe and my angels, saying, please, please help me get better. I can't keep doing this.

Mark Rosenfeld (00:39.202)
Good. Okay.

Mark Rosenfeld (00:52.818)
I thought we were going to shock therapy. I thought, you know, we've tried the herbals, we tried the antibiotics, so we went to shock therapy and finally we got somewhere. But you went a different direction there. You went to God.

Teal Elisabeth (01:02.078)
No, I gotta say, as soon as I started praying to God and saying, God, please get me through this, I can't keep being sick. The holidays are here, I need to get better. All of a sudden, I woke up today being like, I can breathe, I'm not coughing, I can laugh, this is amazing. Thank you, God, it's a Christmas miracle.

Mark Rosenfeld (01:18.58)
It's a miracle. It reminds me of Homer Simpson, an episode I watched when I was so young and he gets sick from eating a seven foot long bagel and he gets sick on a Saturday and he goes, sick on a Saturday. What are the odds? One in a million. And has this breakdown cause he's sick on a Saturday.

what a time. Well, Teal, I've got some good news for the single moms out there. Can I tell you what the good news is? Well, I actually have two pieces of good news. The first is we're to have some great stats next week and things are going pretty well. As a single mom putting in the young child, we are having a one year old. So one year old is quite a young child to date with. We put in the, in the younger child and it's gone pretty well. So details on the final results of that next week. In the meantime, I just wanted to show you a couple of anecdotal things.

Teal Elisabeth (01:48.898)
Let's hear it.

Mark Rosenfeld (02:11.04)
I'm actually going to sandwich these, so I've got two good ones and a bad one in the middle, but the bad one was so hilarious. I couldn't not put it in Teal. So we've got a couple of good ones. and these are little things, but I think they're cool little things. So I'm going to go ahead and share the window here. Let's see if I can. I would call them a little bit closer to cyber chivalry. I would call them a little bit more like this is a good thing.

Teal Elisabeth (02:15.268)
Awesome, okay.

You

Teal Elisabeth (02:26.98)
Are these kind of like witten dimwits or are these just winds and bummers?

Mmm.

Mark Rosenfeld (02:38.096)
if I share the screen here, can you see my screen tail? so for those who are listening, we've just started a conversation. I think maybe this is the second text, not the very, very start, but the one thing I just want to draw attention to here is if we look at his second message, we have got him sharing. He says, I have a son. hang on.

Okay. All right. So if we look here, this is Jim. Jim's first message. He says, my Friday just got a lot better thanks to you. I think, I think we asked him how he's going and cause he asked us, but basically he says, my Friday got a lot better thanks to you and fuck, I remember the backstory of this now why I picked it. Okay. One more time. All right. So this is Jim and basically what's not on the screen is Jim asked us how our day was and we basically said, Hey, I'm

Teal Elisabeth (03:24.228)
That's okay. It's okay.

Mark Rosenfeld (03:33.282)
basically hanging out with my daughter and she saw a really cute butterfly and that was my day and it was beautiful. So it wasn't a big show or anything. And then we asked him back, how's your day? And his response was really lovely. And I appreciated this because he said, my Friday got a lot better. to you. That's a bit cute. and then he made a Costco joke, but the next thing he said was, that's awesome. What's her name? What milestone this time?

So Teal, basically we had alluded to, she was hitting new milestones and he actually took a real interest in that and he asked about her. Now, of course, you've got to make sure that you don't reveal too much. There's child safety and stuff, but realistically, if you're a mom and you've spent your whole day with a kid and someone asks you how your day was,

That's how your day was. You spent a whole day with your kids, seeing it hit milestones. So I appreciated that this guy asked and I'm going to show you another one in a moment, but it was just really nice to get these messages of guys who say, that's so cool that your child is growing and evolving. You know, what was exciting about that or what was cool about that? I'll talk about safety in a little minute, but assuming the best in people, assuming well intention here, I thought that was a really beautiful sentiment.

Teal Elisabeth (04:37.248)
Agreed. That's fabulous. Great response, Jim.

Mark Rosenfeld (04:40.258)
Yeah, thanks, Jim. We appreciate you. in the middle or in the, then actually, yeah, I'll show you this one. in the middle, the not so good one was we had Kev.

I'm going to scroll in on Kev here. So for those who are listening, I'm basically scrolling in on a screenshot here. It started out pretty normal. Kev is either a medical doctor or a nurse or an army doctor or something. We said, good morning, Kev. And he said, hope your day off is going great. It was a bit weird because he said, how was the Usher concert? And we asked him, obviously we hadn't been to an Usher concert. So we asked him how the rodeo was as a bit of a joke, because he obviously didn't mean to send us that. And I made a joke about, well, let's talk about events we didn't attend. But this was a really interesting one.

Teal Elisabeth (05:21.571)
No.

Mark Rosenfeld (05:23.712)
because as we scroll down, he says, my apologies, a coworker went to Usher, but that didn't make any sense. But here's, here's where it got weird because I'm pretty sure at this point, Teal, if you read his white message here, so I'll read it out loud. I'm pretty confident we are talking to an AI by the third message because he says,

Teal Elisabeth (05:41.344)
Really?

Mark Rosenfeld (05:43.873)
He says, haha, that sounds like a funny mix-up. It's easy to confuse things sometimes, especially if you're multitasking and using several apps at once. He's talking about himself in third person. Maybe the profile pictures or names were similar, or it could have been a quick swipe message sent without double-checking. As for communicating with coworkers through bubble, that's pretty uncommon unless it's purely coincidental. It definitely makes for a good story though. And going back and forth on events you didn't attend sounds like a fun and imaginative way to keep the conversation lively.

Teal Elisabeth (06:04.982)
my god.

Teal Elisabeth (06:12.317)
my God. that is so glaringly obvious.

Mark Rosenfeld (06:15.554)
I know, this has chat GPT written all over it. Isn't that funny?

Teal Elisabeth (06:20.42)
We are in a weird world right now, Mark, I swear. I mean, goodness we can still tell the difference, kind of, but this is so strange. What, how did this, I have so many questions. have so many questions.

Mark Rosenfeld (06:28.695)
this.

Mark Rosenfeld (06:31.976)
I was, it seemed pretty normal at the start. So I went, all right, I'm going to go with this and see where this goes. So we responded. So what's your opinion on AI? Is it good for the world or is it risky for our futures? Just to kind of see as he, like what is happening here? He responded. He said, AI, it's a mixed bag. Honestly, it's cool how solving problems and making life easier, but it's unnerving to think about how much control am I taking the future.

Teal Elisabeth (06:44.26)
Yes.

Teal Elisabeth (06:56.436)
Unnerving? Yeah, I'm sure Kev is using words like unnerving.

Mark Rosenfeld (07:00.354)
Kev, the medical, by the way, for those who can't see, this is a big, a big tough looking guy. He's got tattoos. I mean, yes, he's a doctor, but he's a, he's a rigging tough looking doctor. Okay. So he does not talk like this. What about you? Are you team excited or team cautious?

He said, we have mixed feelings. We're excited to apply it see what happens. Well, Kev, I'm feeling excited and attracted to you. Shall we move things forward and connect on a deeper level? I want to know. I want to see how far I can push this. He said, ha ha, hello. I really appreciate your honesty and I feel the same way. I'd love to move forward and explore this connection more deeply with you. What's the one thing people misunderstand about you that you wish they didn't?

Teal Elisabeth (07:30.155)
yeah.

Teal Elisabeth (07:45.038)
So, okay, my bigger question is why is he even using an AI to have conversations? Like, is he thinking that this is gonna get him dates and then he'll show up on the actual date for the person or?

Mark Rosenfeld (07:56.116)
I'm, I'm wondering that. I'm wondering if he's bought a cheap AI and figuring, okay, I don't want to do the dating. I'll plug this thing in and I'm surely fine. And then it'll spit me out a few dates at the end. I don't know. Maybe he starts the conversation cause the first, the first thing he said, it was like, good morning. Hope your day is up. The Usher thing was weird. Maybe not. I don't know if he even started a conversation.

Teal Elisabeth (08:20.206)
Yeah, so strange. I mean, is he even really a surgeon? Right? He's got this picture of him as a doctor, but is that even really him? It's almost like a test.

Mark Rosenfeld (08:28.858)
I don't know. He did have five or six pictures obviously of the same person. So it wasn't a single grabbed photo of the internet. They've got someone's profile here. But anyway, I thought that was funny. And then just to finish on a good note, we had Kenneth.

Teal Elisabeth (08:32.9)
Hmm.

Teal Elisabeth (08:37.337)
Yeah.

Mark Rosenfeld (08:43.488)
We opened the conversation, Hi Kenneth, and Kenneth said, Hey, hope your Friday's going well. He didn't really ask a question there. So we sort of just talked about, yep, my Friday's going well. Good morning. I had a great day. My little daughter is so smart and hitting milestones. It's so beautiful to see. Do see how I'm talking in feelings here, but not really giving any details?

I didn't use a great feelings word there, but I did use an emoji. then I went to Costco and felt a little bit guilty about how much I spent lol. So we shared a little bit there and then he said, Hey, that sounds like a wonderful day. Seeing your little one grow and hit milestones must be so special. This guy also asked what milestone did she hit recently? It's the little things that matter. And don't worry, Costco has that effect on everyone. So I just wanted to show I'm meeting some solid guys to you with, with this single mom stuff and they're asking good questions.

Teal Elisabeth (09:21.741)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They are. They are. That's fabulous. I love seeing this. And for that weird one in the middle, I don't want that to scare anyone off of the dating apps. It's just, I think about just being discerning, right? Just using common sense. Common sense.

Mark Rosenfeld (09:39.66)
Common sense. Exactly. We can spot it. You guys are super smart. You're listening to this. Just, just think about it. This is an army doctor who's, you know, obviously pretty tough and pretty established. He's not going to text like that, you know, or anything close to it. So you can have fun with it, but don't.

Teal Elisabeth (09:54.116)
There's one thing that AI has not cracked yet, and that's intuition. So we can still use our intuition on this.

Mark Rosenfeld (09:59.71)
Yes. Yes. It can't, it's going to be very hard for a machine to be a human on that. So, Teal, moving on, I want to talk about this idea of karma. This is just a small segment here, but it came up in a client session this week. Karma is the idea that what goes around comes around. I do good things. Good things tend to come back to me. It's a very spiritual practice. I think overall it's a very positive thing in the world, but I had an interesting client session this week where, do you ever use the term covert contracts with your clients? Have you ever heard that term?

Teal Elisabeth (10:28.004)
contracts? No.

Mark Rosenfeld (10:29.25)
covert contracts. Yeah. So sometimes in relationships, it's the idea that

Well, I've done something for you. You should do something back for me. So let's say that I buy my neighbor a pop plant and I'm just like, Hey neighbor, here's a pop plant. I'll just give him a pop plant. The neighbor's like, that was nice of my neighbor, gave me a pop plant. But then I start to expect things from my neighbor that I haven't, that he or she hasn't agreed to. And then I get resentful when those things aren't delivered. Well, I bought you a pop plant. You really should mow my grass while I'm on holidays. You know, if you're a good neighbor and stuff, well, you didn't do that. Well, fuck you.

I shouldn't swear online. Sorry about that, guys. It's this idea that, okay, I've created this agreement in my mind. I've given you something and you should give it back. This happens in all different areas. It happens with our partners. I did this for you, so you should do that for me. It happens online with new dates. I wrote you this nice message, so you should write one back. And it even happens with the universe. And I saw this this week with a client. She basically

had this attitude and I said, you know, where is this coming from? I'm setting a lot of resentment and kind of angry in your attitude today. And she said, it's just like, I always do all these nice things for everyone. I have put all this good karma out there in the universe and I get this shit back. When is it my turn? And that made me stop and go,

Instead of using karma as like, I've done this good thing and I've released it. I'm using karma as I've done this good thing. Now I'm owed a result. The universe should be sending a result back. And this is kind of a problem because if you do a good thing and then something random happens and you get the shitty side of life, you get shot on by some random event. Well, now you feel resentful because this covert contract that you made up, I did the good thing and it should be being repaid is not being repaid.

Teal Elisabeth (11:56.42)
Mmm.

Mark Rosenfeld (12:16.5)
And I just, I thought this was an interesting little point because karma can turn into resentful debt. Believing in karma can turn into a sense of entitlement and resentment if you turn karma into a covert contract. Have you, can you relate to this at all?

Teal Elisabeth (12:29.092)
Mm-hmm. that is so good. I feel like we could have a whole big episode conversation just on this topic alone. I think this is so, so powerful and so important. And you know, it's something I had to be very aware of when I was first dating my husband. He actually called me out on it. And it's because it's such a common little thing. For me, it was the tit for tat. I call it not being tit for tat. And I'm a Libra. And so I am all about balance and fairness.

And so it's one of my shadow sides. I have to be very careful that I'm not constantly checking for balance and fairness. And I am a very giving person. And so to catch those expectations is really, really important. And I've come a long way with it. But what the biggest thing I realized that I think you're really touching on is that, yeah, if you're giving from a place of expectation, that's not actually really giving. It's giving with strings attached.

Mark Rosenfeld (13:19.564)
Yes, it's creating debt.

Teal Elisabeth (13:22.358)
Yes, yes, it's creating debt, it's creating strings attached, and it's all energetically tied in a place of now this person feels icky feelings around this whole interaction. And so I love what you're saying here because I wouldn't even say that giving from a place of karma and then expecting things is actual karma at all. Karma is truly when you are in place of such open-heartedness and such overflow that you are just

being your best self in all the ways that that is with no expectation on the outcome. And then that is what actually karma is, is responding to the energy frequency of that vibration or vice versa. And so I think, yeah, this client who's putting out that give to get is getting exactly the energy frequency that she's actually putting it out with, which is coming from a place of scarcity and lack and tight constriction.

Mark Rosenfeld (14:16.118)
Yeah, it was, it was just an interesting little point because we always hear that, that saying, well, what goes around comes around. And it was, I was fascinated to see, in this case, it's kind of been turned into a debt of sorts and it wasn't working in the way this client was, was seeing it. It was actually making her

Teal Elisabeth (14:22.126)
Yeah.

Teal Elisabeth (14:27.076)
you

Mark Rosenfeld (14:33.406)
angrier, you know, more resentful. And we see this in, if you've ever dated a true nice guy, real nice guy trauma, I did this for you. So you should do this for me. Even I took you to dinner, you should have sex with me, or I took you out, you should like me. This happens all the time in dating. We create these covert contracts where we give to get. We think we're being a nice person, but there's a, there's a covert contract attached to it, a nonwritten

Teal Elisabeth (14:35.14)
Yeah.

Teal Elisabeth (14:44.878)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Teal Elisabeth (14:51.545)
Yeah.

Teal Elisabeth (14:56.279)
Yeah, yeah

Mark Rosenfeld (14:58.396)
agreement that you didn't sign on to. And so those contracts can make us very resentful. And I think it's, I thought that was worth pointing out too.

Teal Elisabeth (15:04.792)
Thank you, I'm so glad you brought that up. know, and it's been a big thing that, like I said, has really helped create a healthy foundation for our marriage is, you know, they say a lot about like, marriage is 50-50, you both have to give, you know, give some and compromise some. And my husband says, no, no, it's both people are giving, are coming in a hundred-hundred. Like, it's like, we're not.

Mark Rosenfeld (15:24.224)
Yeah.

Teal Elisabeth (15:26.18)
We're not trying to do something to make up for the other person or yeah, to expect the other person is going to give back that other 50%. We're both going to come in and doing everything we possibly can and trusting and knowing the other person is going to also meet us there. And I think that that's, there's a really beautiful way to look at it. It's like if you, but it comes down to trust, right? You have to trust your partner is going to show up for you and does have that integrity in their character that they are naturally that kind of person that's going to show and give on their own accord.

and not because you're giving to them too. Kitty cat, kitty cat face. What? Why is she hissing?

Mark Rosenfeld (15:57.506)
I know she's literally hissing at me for those that can't see the cat's wagging the tail in my face. And I tried to push her off. She starts hissing at me. This is a, for anyone who owns a tortoiseshell cat, you'll be able to relate. Naughty tortoise as they're called. Tortitude is what we used to talk about as a vet. They don't put up with anything, but no, you're, you're, you're absolutely right, Teal. And there was one key. I wanted to chat. This might not be a conversation for today to you about, well,

in those situations where a woman is feeling her needs aren't being met. Let's say that your partner says, all right, babe, this phase of work is going to be really tough. This is going to be a tough phase. I'm not going to be home much. I'm not going to be available much. So you put your needs aside for a little while and kind of, there's this life will sometimes hit you with situations where it does favor one partner to, to lean on the other or vice versa. And I think there's an interesting conversation there about when that goes on too long. I think that's when people start to think in terms of give to get, well, when is my turn

coming up. I've been sacrificing for you this whole time. I'd be working longer hours or I've been looking after the kids longer hours so that you can do your thing. And if it goes on too long, it does seem like that's when relationships can slip into that. Well, come on, I want my repayment now. And it just, it's almost like it goes to a point where it's fine, but then it habitualizes. And after that point, it's like, no, it's not fine anymore, but we're already doing it. I'm already self sacrificing the same way I was.

Teal Elisabeth (16:56.459)
and

Teal Elisabeth (17:11.876)
you have.

Mark Rosenfeld (17:23.81)
and now I don't know how to change it because I'm not happy with it even though I was happy with it yesterday. Yeah. I think that's an interesting conversation about how do you, how do you balance when there are times where you put someone else's need first? When has it gone on too long? When does, when does it need to see saw back? I'm going to put that in a pen for another day because Teal, you got married a little while ago now, but I've heard rumors that there was a sheep, there was a New Zealander.

Teal Elisabeth (17:29.86)
Thank

Teal Elisabeth (17:39.586)
Let's put that in a pin for another day because I think that's great conversation.

Teal Elisabeth (17:50.084)
It's...

Mark Rosenfeld (17:52.066)
I have all sorts of wild speculation from listeners, including in my own head as to how the sheep got involved in your proposal, but I'm sure the viewers.

Teal Elisabeth (17:54.68)
You

Teal Elisabeth (18:01.026)
you're blowing this chief way out of proportion. He had a very minor guest appearance.

Mark Rosenfeld (18:04.738)
here's a small here. Okay. Well, nonetheless, I've been very curious to hear about your proposal story, Teal. So listeners, this is our chance to hear about Teal's love story. Teal, how were you proposed to?

Teal Elisabeth (18:14.861)
Aww. Thank you, thank you. Well, I will say, I think we were alluding to this in a couple episodes past, that the marriage conversation, the getting married at all, was not a romantic deal to start out with. It was actually quite a debate and quite a conflict for us. We had been dating for about seven years. had...

decided to quit our corporate jobs and travel the world together. So we had been in this place of traveling and building our online businesses together and going to 35 different countries together in this last year. And it was such a magical moment of life. And it kind of was one of these critical points. We were getting to the end of the year. We were going to be coming home in a few days to see our family again. And it was like...

What are we doing here? Right? Like either we're gonna break up or we're gonna get married. That's kind of seemed the natural progression of the relationship and it was something that I felt really strongly about wanting to get married. I had a lot of my own just feelings about it. I hadn't really thought it through in my head. I just knew I wanted to be married because what girl doesn't want to be married in my head. Whereas Spencer very much did not want to get married and so it was a big clashing moment for us and I remember it came to a head in New Zealand. We were at a work work away.

farm where we were literally mucking out sheep stalls and yeah cleaning out this little bed and breakfast in exchange for a place to stay.

Mark Rosenfeld (19:39.04)
You guys were working. wow.

Teal Elisabeth (19:40.736)
We would do some home stays and some work away experiences. It was a really great kind of experience while we were building our companies. And we had about, I did a whole actually interview with Helena Hart about this, about like, what happens when you hit this snag where your husband or your partner doesn't want to get married and you do, like how do you navigate that? Can you inspire him into that next level of commitment? So I'm not going to go into all of that, but I just remember there was just about three weeks of deep conversations

Mark Rosenfeld (19:44.14)
That's cool.

Teal Elisabeth (20:10.422)
where I really had to almost like build a case for why it was important for me to get married and appeal more to his logical part of his brain and at the same time meet him in his biggest fears and insecurities and hold space for that to open up as well so that he was able to get to this point of recognizing okay yes there are valid logical reasons to get married and

I trust you to hold space for my feelings of all the things I'm scared about, about getting married. And we were able to move through that and it was really, really beautiful. So it kind of just came to this resolution of we kind of worked through all the conversations of it after three weeks of talking on the couch and then we're like, okay, I guess we'll get married then. And it was like.

Mark Rosenfeld (20:53.046)
That sounds like you're objection-handled.

Teal Elisabeth (20:55.712)
Yeah, it was exactly objection handling. Like I was in some sales call and I'm trying to prove my point here. It was very anticlimactic. It was nothing like the romantic movies make it out to be. And I just remember there being like, just sitting there on the couch and being like, so we're getting married then. Okay, this is, I won. I did it. We won. But that wasn't actually the proposal. That's the weird thing. It was like, we agreed.

Mark Rosenfeld (21:01.132)
Ha

Mark Rosenfeld (21:15.714)
I made the sale. god.

Mark Rosenfeld (21:24.172)
right.

Teal Elisabeth (21:25.888)
And in the hindsight, on the concept.

Mark Rosenfeld (21:26.883)
Great on the concept that you're both in, which often happens. Let's be honest, couples talk about getting married. They're like, yeah, we'll do this. And then the woman's waiting for the proposal.

Teal Elisabeth (21:34.36)
But it's a weird thing too. I mean, in hindsight, I think it's important. I think it's good that we hashed out all the details and really got clear and level set on what does it look like? What does marriage mean to us? What does being in partnership in this level represent? How do we wanna build a marriage together? What does all that look like? Rather than just being like, will you marry me? And like, yes, yay. And then a year later, you're like, wait, what are we doing?

Mark Rosenfeld (21:58.167)
Yeah.

Teal Elisabeth (21:58.69)
I think it's important to hash those things out. But at the time, it just felt very anticlimactic and very non-romantic. And we're in this, so we also had this motor home and we were planning to do this 10 day motor home trip at the end of our stay before we flew home. And I just remember that we got into our motor home and we're driving along and we get to this next little town and we're just window shopping. And no joke, like there is a beautiful ring store, jewelry store in this tiny little town in New Zealand.

Mark Rosenfeld (22:28.314)
I keep waiting for the sheep. was like, there's a beautiful sheep that's just walking down the aisle. We just look at each other, but that's not where it's going. So we're not there yet. Okay. Beautiful ring store happened to be on the way. Got it. Continue.

Teal Elisabeth (22:35.46)
no, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. This story's just getting started. So I'm like, well, let's just look inside this ring store, you know? Since we already talked about we're gonna do this at some point, right? So we go in the ring store and of course the ring that I've been envisioning my whole life is there in the store just like, bing, shining. We have like, it's fate. We have to do this. We have to get this ring. And of course he's freaking out. He's like, crap. Now we're really...

Mark Rosenfeld (23:01.91)
Yeah. Ugh.

Teal Elisabeth (23:03.906)
He's hyperventilating outside the store. I'm having to like calm him down, feel like it's okay. Anyways, we buy the rings. He buys the rings like a gentleman. And I'm like waiting for him. Yeah, he bought a ring for himself too. We wanted to have rings, engagement rings together from New Zealand.

Mark Rosenfeld (23:15.65)
He bought two.

Mark Rosenfeld (23:19.338)
interesting. Okay. Gotcha. So you just spontaneously found a store not long after this comp. Man, Spencer must have been under the pump.

Teal Elisabeth (23:31.338)
We even been together seven years.

Mark Rosenfeld (23:31.712)
I mean, he sounds like he was. You said he was outside hyperventilating. isn't it so funny the different reactions of men and women? Like just that, that moment, if it was the other way around, we would think it's so much less common and less stereotypical if you were outside hyperventilating and he was in there. People would probably think it's romantic, but it's interesting how people respond so differently. Anyway, continue.

Teal Elisabeth (23:38.988)
It's.

Teal Elisabeth (23:53.506)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I just, for me, I'm like, it's fate. I found the ring. I've been, I mean, I had had pictures on my phone of this ring. Like it was just like, how weird is this that it's showing up in this random store? And I'm talking a tiny town. If anyone's been in New Zealand, it's Nelson, New Zealand. It's this probably like 2000 people population and there's one street. no, it's just my, my ring right here. It's beautiful. Yeah.

Mark Rosenfeld (24:13.014)
Yeah, right. What was the ring? Was it some special design? Can you show us? Like how did you know? Cause there's a lot of, I look into a ring store and I'm like, all right, there's 40,000 rings here. Each of them looks 1 % different from the next one. They may as well all be mostly the same to me. It's like.

Teal Elisabeth (24:28.758)
No, to me, I just, love the simplicity of the band. I love the square cut and it's got like little tiny diamonds all around. I love that it's kind of like an old antiquey kind of look. But.

Mark Rosenfeld (24:36.93)
gorgeous.

Mark Rosenfeld (24:41.058)
So that's what you've been imagining. That shape, that simplicity. Okay, all right, wow, there you go.

Teal Elisabeth (24:45.004)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, I to me, I was like, this is, there is nothing better. We literally manifested this. This is all the stars aligning. Why wouldn't we do this? And he's like, shit, now I have to really follow through on what we agreed to. So anyways, we buy the rings. I'm, of course, woman's mind goes into expectation mode. I'm like, he's going to drop down on one knee outside the ring store and we're going to make it official. Nope. He just holds onto the boxes of the rings in his pocket.

and we keep walking back to our motor home to keep on our little journey. And I'm like, what the heck? And I'm like, so excited right now, right?

Mark Rosenfeld (25:20.512)
you don't get the proposal straight away, Tee. I think you buy the ring, then you wait a couple of months, don't you? Isn't that how it works?

Teal Elisabeth (25:25.444)
I'm dying here. I'm dying. I'm like we already decided we already have the rings and I'm still not engaged this sucks, right? So then we get on this motorhome and we have to get to the airport tomorrow and We've got to get from the South Island over to the North Island if they take a ferry Drive our motorhome probably a good another maybe two three hundred miles to get to Where we have to drop it off to get on the plane. So we've got a time crunch here

So we're like, okay, we're driving in our motorhome. We're clunking it along up these huge mountains in New Zealand to try and get to the ferry terminal. And out of nowhere, the motorhome breaks down and the clutch gets stuck in first gear. As we're going up and down these massive mountains. So we're freaking out. And by the way, we're driving on the, what is it? The left side of the road, the right side of the road, the opposite of the United States.

Mark Rosenfeld (26:19.628)
The normal side, yeah, gotcha.

Teal Elisabeth (26:22.436)
So I'm driving in first gear for probably a good like hour, just like in first gear, trying not to freak out and like, how in the world are we going to get another 200 miles to drop this off and get on a plane by tomorrow? I'm like, babe, don't worry about it. We're going to get this figured out. Like we're literally out in the middle of boonies. Like there are sheep farms everywhere. There are mountains. Like there's nothing else out there. I'm like, babe, we're going to find

Mark Rosenfeld (26:36.074)
in first gear.

Teal Elisabeth (26:50.188)
an auto repair shop somewhere, it's gonna come around, we're gonna find someone who can fix this for us." And he's like, where in the world are we gonna find that, right? I'm like, it's okay. Meanwhile, the rings are burning a hole in his pocket. I'm like, when are we gonna do this proposal? So literally, no joke, after I say that, probably five minutes more of driving in first gear, we see this like big barn and I'm like, we gotta go in that barn. I think there's something there in that barn.

Mark Rosenfeld (27:03.362)
Hahaha

Teal Elisabeth (27:18.382)
So we pull over to this random barn. I get out of the motorhome. I go in like, hello, hello, is there anyone here? And Sam the Kiwi in his orange jumpsuit comes out. He's like, hi, mate, how you doing? You know, whatever. I can't do an accent. No, it's horrible. I'm like, our motorhome broke down. Can you help us please? Can you do anything to help fix us?

Mark Rosenfeld (27:35.042)
That wasn't bad. was actually like that. like, continue. I don't think it was too bad.

Teal Elisabeth (27:44.224)
Next thing I know, he's in the dashboard ripping out the full dashboard, pulling apart all the wires, looking at everything going, gosh, gosh, yeah. And we're just like sitting there. We're waiting outside and we're just literally sitting amongst the sheep. This is where the sheep come in. We're just sitting in the grass amongst the sheep. I'm like, great, this is where we're gonna get proposed to. I'm gonna get proposed to literally next to these sheep.

Mark Rosenfeld (28:09.602)
you

Teal Elisabeth (28:10.072)
Well, our motorhome's broken down. We're not gonna get to the plane. Like, this is just it. And who knows about insurance and like paying for this broken motorhome now. Next thing I know, he's jimmy-rigged a way to fix the motorhome just so that it can get it back into the gears that we need to get it as far as we can. He's called to the rental place and explained what's happened, which is not our fault. It actually was happened before us.

Basically, we got off Scott free, got this motorhome fixed enough to drive it. So we're making our way. like, OK, we got our motorhome fixed. I'm thinking, OK, we're going to do this. We're going to make it. We pull in for the night to this beautiful vineyard on the ocean at sunset. And I'm thinking this is where I'm going to get my proposal. This is going to be so romantic, so beautiful. We make a little dinner in the motorhome, candlelight. Still no proposal. I'm just like, what the heck, dude?

What are doing? Like this is the moment. This is perfect. We just had this stressful day and now it's all wonderful. Nope. Okay. Go to bed. Next morning I wake up, sunrise over the ocean. He's making me coffee, bringing it to me in my little motorhome bed. And I'm thinking, this is the moment. He's just going to pop down right now and do it right as we wake up. And nope. This dude is like, string.

Mark Rosenfeld (29:30.754)
You're going to be riding these highs and lows for a couple of months. I don't know if I'm Spencer, I'm like, I got the rings. Make a plan in the next six months. Make it happen. That's what's going through my brain. You're going every, every coffee. It's like, this could be it. This could be a gripping the table. Is this it? Gee whiz.

Teal Elisabeth (29:47.22)
for this moment my entire life and every single moment feels like such a magical moment. He's got the rings in his pocket. It could be any moment, right? And so magical. And we're about to fly home and see our family and all this stuff. And I'm thinking, my god, like what is he waiting for? But I didn't say anything. I just kept trusting and letting it be what it was going to be and just being grateful for the moment and just soaking up all the beautiful romance of the moment.

So at this point, you know, we're driving along again, we get to the ferry port so that we can get to the next island so we can get to the airport. And we've got about an hour wait before the ferry comes. And I see a twinkle in his eye. He's like, I've got an hour. Very, we gotta wait. He sees a mountain up at the top of where the ferry dock was. He's like.

we're gonna take a little detour. And he drives up the mountain top to this beautiful lookout point that neither of us knew was there. He was just looking around for something that looked pretty and found this gorgeous lookout point overlooking all of like the fjords of Queen Charlotte Sound at the top of the South Island and took me outside, popped me down on one knee and did the whole proposal and it was so perfect.

Mark Rosenfeld (30:37.707)
Hahaha

Teal Elisabeth (31:02.722)
Took some pictures together and then got on the ferry, got on the airplane and flew home to all of our family.

Mark Rosenfeld (31:08.738)
Did you tell people on the ferry? You did? I was gonna say. Yeah, yeah. That's, that's so cute, T.O.

Teal Elisabeth (31:11.276)
Yeah, yeah, we're dead. I mean, I'm being in it this far and I'm like, finally! Finally!

Teal Elisabeth (31:20.302)
But it was quite the journey, quite the experience.

Mark Rosenfeld (31:22.869)
I love that. That was an adventure. And yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm surprised that you expected it so soon because I bought the ring. was like, yeah, cool. I got maybe six months now to plan this out and figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. I took, I, I think she suspected. Yeah. She hadn't literally seen me go to the shop, but she's like, Mark took a random detour in the vicinity of the jewelry store. It's probably, probably happened, but yeah, it took me

Teal Elisabeth (31:32.866)
Really? Did she know you had the ring?

Teal Elisabeth (31:48.644)
Well that's a little different though, because I was literally buying the with him. Yeah, I'm like, why are we waiting? Like, why are we waiting? Like, you just bought it for me. Like, can I please have this ring now? I just- we just bought it.

Mark Rosenfeld (31:51.424)
You were literally there. You saw it purchase. You're like, damn it, boy. Get on with it. Get on with it, man. I need to get my glow. Well, that's, that's very cute. I learned something new about you, Teal, today and how it all happened and the listeners. Maybe I'll tell mine at some point. can share, we could share that in a future episode. Well, guys, thank you for joining us on the project today. I hope you enjoyed Teal's story. Teal, before we go, you have something very special.

Teal Elisabeth (32:05.463)
Yeah.

I would love to hear yours. Yeah.

Teal Elisabeth (32:18.722)
Yeah, I wanted to give you a little gift around this holiday, beautiful holiday season. I have two beautiful guided meditations completely free that I want to gift to this audience. One of them is to really help you deepen into your self love and really build that sense of inner glow within you. And the other one is a guided meditation to help you call in the one. And this just gets you into that frequency of feeling magnetic, feeling powerful, feeling radiant in your feminine energy. So I will leave the link and if you are feeling inspired, you can download.

either one of them or both of them and get to enjoy a little gift from me this year.

Mark Rosenfeld (32:53.26)
check those out in the description or the show notes team. Teal, thanks for joining me and sharing your amazing story. Appreciate you. Guys, we appreciate you listening and we will see you next week on The Tinder Project. Bye for now.

Teal Elisabeth (32:59.876)
This has been great. Yeah. Talk with you next.

Teal Elisabeth (33:05.924)
Bye!