#893 - Jillian Turecki - 9 Harsh Truths About How Relationships Work

Speaker 1 It begins with you. They do not have the power.
We do. All the disappointment, confusion, and drama of your former relationships can be traced to the universal fear that you are not enough.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Everything that you do inside of a relationship that you are really confused about, that's been maddening to you and to your former partners, or anything that

Speaker 2 anything that you are questioning, it can be boiled down to the fact that you are afraid that you're not enough for this person.

Speaker 2 And if you're not enough, that somehow love is going to be taken away from you. Because if we,

Speaker 2 when we are confronted with that insecurity, that we are not good enough in some way, that's when we start to act out all our weirdness inside of a relationship, honestly.

Speaker 2 And yes, of course, there's childhood, there's conditioning, there's your parents. All these things are influences.
But

Speaker 2 when people are angry, they're afraid. When people are lashing out, they're afraid.
When people are clinging, they're afraid. When people are shutting down, they are afraid.
And

Speaker 2 I started the book and named it. It begins with you because no one is going to stand in your way more than you.
No one is going to lie to you more than you do to yourself.

Speaker 2 Same for me. This is just everyone.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's not about you're the only person to blame. It's not about blame at all.
But

Speaker 2 if we want to change

Speaker 2 our relationship lives, if we want to change our lives at all, we have to be able to look within and see the ways in which our insecurity gets in the way of a relationship.

Speaker 2 And we have to see where are also not just our insecurity, but our belief system and our conditioning and the things that happened in childhood. We are the common denominator in all our relationships.

Speaker 2 That's actually really good news because it means that you can actually change something.

Speaker 2 This concept of is the problem, is you, not necessarily. You know, the problem could very well be the people who you're choosing, but you're choosing them.

Speaker 2 So you're choosing them. Why? And so the first principle, the first truth is

Speaker 2 you have to be willing to look within.

Speaker 2 And a lot of people are not willing to do that until they are desperate. But it's the only way.

Speaker 1 It's interesting, the not enough thing that it makes

Speaker 1 love and attachment and

Speaker 1 care feel contingent.

Speaker 1 It feels like, if I could be more, if I was able to be dot dot dot. And, you know, if you listen to a lot of the

Speaker 1 discussions on the internet around romance, but also around friendships and stuff like that,

Speaker 1 a lot of the time, you know, it's a hopeful and motivating message to say, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, outgrow the person that hurt you, make yourself better.

Speaker 1 Take this curse and turn it into a lesson instead of a blessing that it could have been, but it wasn't. So now you're going to, you know, alchemize yourself into some better version of you.

Speaker 1 Like, all of that's fine. But

Speaker 1 the subtext of a lot of that conversation is still,

Speaker 1 you're not sort of worthy as you are. And there's this place that you need to get yourself to, or could get yourself to.

Speaker 1 And if only you were there, maybe you wouldn't have been rejected by this person.

Speaker 1 Maybe they would have actually, maybe you would have been able to fulfill their desires to the point where they would have actually been happy with you as you are.

Speaker 2 Yes. And that's a losing strategy.
I mean, so much of, if you're reflecting on past relationships that didn't work,

Speaker 2 the best thing to do is just to let go and to surrender to the fact that, you know, life is about making mistakes and sometimes epic mistakes.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 if you are,

Speaker 2 if you've got someone smart whispering in your ear, telling you to, you know, take a look at this and see what you can learn from it so that you don't repeat it, that's the best case scenario.

Speaker 2 You know, some things just don't work out because it wasn't right, some things don't work out, some relationships don't work out because you both were too immature to make it work out.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it doesn't work out because, I don't know, like

Speaker 2 it wasn't supposed to, you were supposed to learn something, it was supposed to be an experience, maybe it was supposed to be a love affair instead of it being a marriage, you know.

Speaker 2 I mean, but this is the thing: we um

Speaker 2 romantic relationships are

Speaker 2 where we feel most vulnerable.

Speaker 1 And there's two worlds. There's two worlds where I think

Speaker 1 your inner patterns show up in a very unique way. The first one is in relationships and the second one is in business.

Speaker 2 Always.

Speaker 1 I think James Clear says that

Speaker 1 starting a business is a vehicle for personal growth, masquerading as a wealth-making enterprise.

Speaker 2 Yes, I would wholeheartedly agree with that.

Speaker 1 I was trying to think about this over the festive period. I guess family, you know, your whatever, birth family is probably a third area as only child living a few thousand miles away from home.

Speaker 1 That's not something I have to contend with too much. But

Speaker 1 those three areas. And I was thinking at least about the first two, the romantic thing and the business thing, about why it's the case.
And I guess it's because

Speaker 1 there's very few other situations you get yourself into where you're pushed so far.

Speaker 1 That there's if it was a person on the street Yeah, I was in New York only yesterday and there was a person on the street obviously in a bit of mental distress homeless guy and you know he's sort of shouting and talking and pointing at you and whatever and you go well I can just walk away.

Speaker 1 I don't have any attachment to this person. I don't have any sense of obligation to fulfill the needs of whatever and then I don't need to think about it anymore.

Speaker 1 But with a business, you know, it's got this sense of self attached to it. It's got your self-worth embedded in it.

Speaker 1 And you are there and you you look at all of the time you've invested in this thing and look at the future you could have together. And the exact same thing is true when it comes to romance as well.

Speaker 1 So, yeah,

Speaker 1 business and relationships are able to expose our inner patterns in a way that very few other things can.

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, you said something about self-worth being embedded in that.
Absolutely. It's also your belief system.
It's, you know,

Speaker 2 my dad never was able to make it, so I need to make it. Or my dad always

Speaker 2 put pressure on me to be a certain way and to achieve. It's who am I if I'm not achieving?

Speaker 2 Who am I if I'm not successful?

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 again,

Speaker 2 it's the, it's identity, it's self-worth, it's

Speaker 2 it's your entire childhood being exposed.

Speaker 2 basically in your entire your entire beliefs it's your relationship with certainly at least one of your parents being being exposed pretty much and triggered all the time in business and in romantic relationships.

Speaker 2 And, you know, if you're the kind of person who doesn't like to give up or you're very achievement-oriented, then

Speaker 2 chances are,

Speaker 2 well, chances are you

Speaker 2 have had a lot of achievement. But on the other, on the flip side of the coin is you have a very hard time letting go.

Speaker 2 So with everything that we deal with, there's a positive and there's sort of a corresponding negative, and it's going to be incredibly triggering for sure. That said, I think that

Speaker 2 I really think that even if work is going phenomenally well, even if you have all the money you want, even if your health is good, if your

Speaker 2 relationship, specifically your intimate relationship, is struggling, you're suffering. Even if you have purpose, if that relationship is not going well, you are are going to wake up stressed.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, for some people, you could say the same thing about business as well. But I think that

Speaker 2 I think deep down in everyone's heart,

Speaker 2 they want love more than they want money and fame.

Speaker 1 Well, if we think about what we've created a proxy of with business success, all of those things ultimately lead back to some form of status, which is tradable for love and acceptance from a partner and from the wider group.

Speaker 1 So it's a much more direct route to get the thing, which is the belonging, the reassurance, the fulfillment from the partner as opposed to all of these proxies.

Speaker 1 But the problem is that you can't really show a balance sheet of how much love and care you have. So you know McNamara's fallacy.
Have you heard of this?

Speaker 2 No, educate me.

Speaker 1 So the Vietnam War, they were trying to work out what the best metrics were to measure to work out whether America was winning or losing the war.

Speaker 1 And McNamara decided to use, I think it was the number of enemy combatants that were killed

Speaker 1 because it's very easy. It appears on a balance sheet.
You can work that out.

Speaker 1 But what they should have been looking at was what was the sentiment at home?

Speaker 1 Because the reason the Vietnam War was a massive L for the United States was not only the fact that they didn't manage to make the ground and conquer in the manner that they wanted, but it was the way that the sentiment at home changed.

Speaker 1 So the rule is we intend to measure what we care about, but instead we end up caring about what we can measure.

Speaker 1 And the fact that you can see your number of followers on social media or the size of your bank balance or the house that you've got or the car or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1 And then you can play this comparison game. You care about what you can measure as opposed to measuring what you want to care about.
And yeah, if you...

Speaker 1 If you could somehow, if there was some dashboard that showed everybody's marital happiness, I'm sure people would pay a lot more attention, like embarrassingly, people would pay way more attention to their relationship satisfaction if they could just find a way to measure that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's interesting. You're probably right.
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I mean,

Speaker 2 yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting. I um,

Speaker 2 it's interesting how many people I know who

Speaker 2 I think there's people need a sense of purpose. They need to feel connected to themselves.

Speaker 2 They need to have a sense of self that they bring into a relationship.

Speaker 2 And a relationship is a mirror. It is going to show you where your work lies and where your work is.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, I just was recently having a conversation with someone, and he was just opening up to me about how he and his wife are going through a rough patch.

Speaker 2 They have an eight-month baby, eight-month-old baby, and babies can really rock the foundation of a marriage or a relationship.

Speaker 2 And he was just describing, he's like, you know, we're going through a rough patch, like we're arguing about this and that, and you know, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 And this idea that he kind of wanted to like give up. And I said, no, no, you can't like what? No, you can't give up.

Speaker 2 You, right now, you're in your head and you're thinking that it's all her fault and you're doing everything. And it's not.
It takes two to tango. And so I'm sharing this story just because, you know,

Speaker 2 so many relationships end because people don't know, they don't have the tools to make the relationship work. And that's part of the reason why.
we feel so incredibly vulnerable.

Speaker 2 There's lots of books out there about how to make money, how to run a business, and all of that.

Speaker 2 It doesn't address, a lot of the books don't actually address what we were just a minute ago talking about, which is this is what it's going to trigger inside of you.

Speaker 2 And there's lots of great, amazing books about communication. And communication, let me tell you something.
That's that's a skill that everyone needs when it comes to a relationship.

Speaker 2 But there's not enough literature out there to address

Speaker 2 this is like, like, this is what

Speaker 2 your mind is going to do to you when you are in a relationship. And if you are not careful and you let your mind get the best of you, it's done.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 I said to him, I said, you are stuck in your head. I understand that it's hard, but you don't just leave when it's hard.
You figure it out or you do your best to figure it out.

Speaker 2 And when I say your best, literally your best.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 after that, you can, you both can make a decision. And this is, you know, there's no abuse here.
There's nothing like that. You know, they're very committed.

Speaker 2 But it's, it's amazing to me how,

Speaker 2 well, I guess it's not amazing to me. I think that

Speaker 2 relationships are where we feel, yes, the most vulnerable, but what goes along with that is sort of like a helplessness, like sort of hopeless, you know, like I don't know how to make this better.

Speaker 2 All I know is that I feel like shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the, the,

Speaker 1 I think people can put up with a lot of suffering if only they didn't, if only they knew that there was a route out, right? It's the reason that Uber is so good.

Speaker 1 The reason that Uber was a revolution wasn't that you could get a cab from anywhere by using a single app on your phone. It's that you knew how long it was going to take before it got to you.

Speaker 1 So it removed the anxiety of waiting. Right.
That was what it was.

Speaker 2 And not having to take out your wallet.

Speaker 1 True. Okay.
Yeah. I mean, look, there's lots of reasons.

Speaker 2 But one of the things that's very true.

Speaker 1 One of the things people

Speaker 1 underestimate is that this relates to the second truth. The mind is a battlefield.
Our minds are always creating stories.

Speaker 1 And if we don't question our thoughts and beliefs, our heads can quickly become battlefields.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 So in very ancient yogic texts and Buddhist texts, there's this idea of the monkey mind. So

Speaker 2 the metaphor is like if you think of a a monkey swinging from branch to branch, just sort of swinging and moving, that's sort of like the nature of the mind.

Speaker 2 It's just going from thought to thought to thought.

Speaker 2 And if we don't, and the monkey's wild. And so if we don't learn the tools and if we don't practice taming the monkey, the monkey will

Speaker 2 take full control. We are story-making machines.
We like to make a story out of everything. And some people have a very,

Speaker 2 they have a knack for

Speaker 2 assigning a lot of disempowering and negative meanings to everything.

Speaker 2 But none of us are immune to that. And so

Speaker 2 what's happening in a relationship when it's going well?

Speaker 2 Well, the story in everyone's head is that is filled with a lot of positive meaning and

Speaker 2 positivity and love.

Speaker 2 The relationship that's not going well, it's two brains that that are creating a lot of stories. I mean, of course, there's other reasons that a relationship's not going well.

Speaker 2 There's very, very extreme circumstances that could happen.

Speaker 2 But on the average, that's what's happening. And let's take this out of the context of relationships.
It's like you can relate it to business or anything else.

Speaker 2 I mean, how many times have you laid in bed at night, replaying something in your mind or replaying something in the morning, and you've created like

Speaker 2 a whole story about what they did, what they thought, and, you know, why they did that. And you get yourself all worked up and you get yourself in such a state, and it was all in your head.

Speaker 2 And I think part of maturing is being able to catch ourselves in those thoughts and just being able to say, okay.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I'm not thinking clearly right now.

Speaker 2 I'm, you know, my mind is like, my mind is messy right now.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 this was something that I never learned until I started doing this work, which is that,

Speaker 2 you know, the story that we assign to anything determines how we feel about anything.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that our minds

Speaker 2 are designed to keep us safe. They're not designed to make us happy.

Speaker 2 And so we have to be able to discipline our minds and question our thoughts often.

Speaker 2 This is the whole idea of mindfulness, like bringing mindfulness into your life or bringing mindfulness to your relationship is

Speaker 2 bringing more awareness, awareness of how our thoughts can get the better of us.

Speaker 2 how our stories and the meanings that we assign to certain things. Well, if he loved me then, or if she loved me then, you know, that's, that's a big one.

Speaker 2 I know you meant to do this, or, you know, you wouldn't have said that if you didn't do that, or if you didn't feel that.

Speaker 2 These are the things that,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 that can really,

Speaker 2 really destroy a relationship and destroy our experience of a relationship.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I suppose it's you start after a while to not even have a relationship with the person. You have a relationship with your relationship to the relationship.

Speaker 2 You have a relationship with the story that you have about the relationship.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 And that it doesn't surprise me that it kind of is not necessarily the beginning of the end, but certainly the beginning of a difficult period that you're going to have to get over if you want to fix it, because you're becoming increasingly isolated.

Speaker 1 You're having an experience on your own, which you're not sharing with the person that it's about.

Speaker 2 And then you're becoming resentful.

Speaker 1 Correct. Yeah.
The Neil Strauss, was this last year? I think this was two years ago.

Speaker 1 The best quote that I heard: unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.

Speaker 2 Yes, it's brilliant. Yes.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Fuck. Yeah.
So good. So correct and so accurate.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, expectations, and we have to really manage our expectations as well.
You know,

Speaker 2 a lot of times in a relationship, we're expecting this sort of rightness from our partner.

Speaker 2 And we seldom do we look within and think, how can I be better as a partner?

Speaker 2 How can I change something here?

Speaker 1 How am I complicit in this thing that's happening?

Speaker 2 Absolutely. And, you know, you take two people in a relationship who are willing to ask themselves that question.
How am I complicit in whatever is going on here that is not working?

Speaker 2 Chances are you're going to have those people are going to have a pretty epic relationship. Honestly, accountability is the most important thing in a relationship.

Speaker 1 Dig into that for me. What do you mean when you say accountability?

Speaker 2 Being willing to be 100% responsible for your experience. So you're responsible for your thoughts, you're responsible for your perspectives, you're responsible for your behavior.

Speaker 2 That does not mean that two people come in, let's say they want couples coaching. It's not like, well, 50% is your fault, and 50% is your fault.

Speaker 2 You know, it could be that one person is actually causing more of the problems. But oftentimes,

Speaker 2 we have to be very accountable for our projections. So, something that we do in relationships is we project.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 we, without, before we become more mindful and more conscious,

Speaker 2 we think that we're looking at the person that we love when really what we're looking at is

Speaker 2 our ex,

Speaker 2 our mom, our dad. We're looking at them through the filter of our past.

Speaker 2 And instead of actually seeing the person,

Speaker 2 our unconscious is reminded of something that our mom or our dad did that we couldn't stand.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden, we are, you know, we're blaming them as if for all our unfinished business and resentment against one or both of our parents. That's projection.

Speaker 2 Or we get into a relationship with a certain level of insecurity and low self-esteem.

Speaker 2 And then when our partner is not making us happy, we think, you know, you're not loving me well when you came into the relationship insecure.

Speaker 2 So we have, so accountability

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 being

Speaker 2 able to say,

Speaker 2 All right, we have a problem. There's something that's upsetting us, or there's something that's upsetting me.

Speaker 2 What am I,

Speaker 2 How am I complicit?

Speaker 2 Am I projecting here? Do I even know what their needs are? Have I even been expressing my needs?

Speaker 2 So it really truly is,

Speaker 2 in my view, the most important. It's not the only one that matters, but it's the most important relationship skill is to be able to take full responsibility.
That is a very

Speaker 2 good measure of someone's emotional intelligence and of someone's character.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 character is so interesting

Speaker 1 to think about,

Speaker 1 yeah, are you able to, are you able to put yourself to one side, sort of your narrow need for, to be right,

Speaker 1 to put yourself first ahead of this thing that's supposed to be the thing that you care about? You know,

Speaker 1 if what I think both of us believe is true, which is

Speaker 1 you can have a

Speaker 1 great career and a crappy relationship and be pretty miserable. You can have an average career and a great relationship and have a delightful life.
Yes.

Speaker 1 So what we're saying is that the most important thing, if you're going to couple up, the most important thing is who you couple up with.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Okay. That means that everything

Speaker 1 comes second to the relationship.

Speaker 2 Well.

Speaker 2 In many ways, yes.

Speaker 1 I mean, you need to look after your health so that you can show up.

Speaker 2 Yes, well, well, health, health is obviously the most important thing, and our relationship to ourselves is the most important thing.

Speaker 2 But you can't, it's not so separate from the relationship from the other because you're constantly going to have to, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 There's going to be a lot of, if you're in a relationship for the long term, there's going to be a lot of times you're just going to be like, oh, they're being so annoying. I don't feel like dealing.

Speaker 2 And is it really about them? Or are you just in a bad mood?

Speaker 2 Are okay,

Speaker 2 you don't really feel like having this conversation with them,

Speaker 2 it's it's bringing up a lot of discomfort for you.

Speaker 2 Are you going to

Speaker 2 go for the temporary comfort in not having the conversation, or are you just going to continually make things worse?

Speaker 2 Like, we are constantly being asked to transcend ourselves and our egos in a relationship, but yeah, you're, I think all relationships are the most important thing. They really do

Speaker 2 determine our lives. And

Speaker 2 a romantic relationship, look, it's the person you are naked with emotionally, physically,

Speaker 2 it's the person who

Speaker 2 could leave you.

Speaker 2 You have friendships that

Speaker 2 there's a level of certainty that we have with our, with certain friendships and with family family members that

Speaker 2 you know, they're not going anywhere, or if we don't speak them to them for a week, our relationship is still strong. Those rules don't apply.
It just doesn't apply in a romantic relationship.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 everyone fears on some level being left,

Speaker 2 you know, being unloved, being abandoned in some way.

Speaker 2 And so in writing this book, I really wanted people people to ask themselves, well, and to reflect on,

Speaker 2 well, what are some of the things that you do when you're afraid in a relationship?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 2 because you got to know.

Speaker 1 What would you say to someone who is in the middle of the mind as a battlefield

Speaker 1 world?

Speaker 1 How do you advise them, especially when it's to do with relating to somebody else, the person that they care about the most, the one that they're most scared of that's going to leave them?

Speaker 1 How can they just fix that, get out of the head a little bit, get back to some rationality?

Speaker 2 To get out of the head is to, it's the, the pathway is always to get into your body.

Speaker 2 So you want to deepen your breath because whenever you're in your head, like really in your head, like in the thick of the battlefield of your mind,

Speaker 2 your breath is shallow

Speaker 2 and your muscles are very tight. So the first thing is to just to to take a timeout and connect to your breathing

Speaker 2 and to take a deep breath in, a deep deep breath out and let your exhalation be longer. And so you first have to kind of do that so that you can get in a more,

Speaker 2 you can calm your nervous system, if you will.

Speaker 2 And then you can ask yourself some questions, which I love the work of Bayern Katie, where it's, where she says, you know, is it true? Are you sure that it's true?

Speaker 2 So you can ask yourself these questions, but it always starts with, you know, when you're in your head, you're reactive.

Speaker 2 And in order to transition from a reactive state to a more responsive state, or you use the word a more rational state, you have to incorporate your breathing. You may need to do a little movement.

Speaker 2 You may need to just go for a walk. You may need to call a friend.

Speaker 2 You may need to work out. You may need to take a shower.
You may need to eat something.

Speaker 2 Because when we eat, it changes our nervous system. it changes our physiological state.
You get more grounded when you eat, you get more satiated, you get more full, the energy starts to go down.

Speaker 2 So, um,

Speaker 2 that's a first and foremost,

Speaker 1 yeah. I, um,

Speaker 1 I don't know, the fact that people get so

Speaker 1 stuck and so caught up thinking and thinking and overthinking, which makes the overthinking worse and doesn't allow them to get out of it. I don't know, it's a ruthless bind.

Speaker 1 And especially the sort of people that listen to shows like this who are a bit thoughtful and maybe introspective. And, you know, they really want to do well.

Speaker 1 And they see their own failings from a front row seat. Yes.

Speaker 1 And they think, oh, my God, look at how viscerally I'm able to experience this horrible sensation I can't stop thinking about, or this thought loop I'm caught up in.

Speaker 1 Or, oh, my God, my brain's about to tell me that same story that I've told myself about the situation. I'm bored of my own thoughts.

Speaker 1 I'm I'm bored of myself telling me this thing.

Speaker 2 That's a good place to be.

Speaker 2 It's good to be bored with yourself because typically that's when we start to change.

Speaker 2 When we actually can't stand it anymore.

Speaker 2 Otherwise, we're just kind of like the loop keeps happening because it's so comfortable and it's so familiar and we're so unconscious about it.

Speaker 2 Once we're conscious and we're just like, I am so bored of this, that's when we actually start to make a change, actually.

Speaker 1 Truth number three: lust is not the same thing as love. Nope.
Knowing the difference is essential for building long-lasting love.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 So when we first meet someone and we're really excited about them,

Speaker 2 we enter a sort of euphoric state,

Speaker 2 some sort of euphoria.

Speaker 2 And it's the, and we think,

Speaker 2 oh, it's this person, when really they are just a metaphor

Speaker 2 for a feeling of novelty, adventure,

Speaker 2 a freedom from the monotony of our lives, you know, or freedom even from overthinking sometimes.

Speaker 2 It's like all of a sudden if we've been living up here in our heads and then we meet someone we're really excited about, all of a sudden we feel like we're in our hearts more.

Speaker 2 And that's always a more comfortable place for human beings to live. We're always happier when we are living it, when we're more in our bodies and less in our heads.
Always.

Speaker 2 And so,

Speaker 2 and then we get, you know, people in this stage

Speaker 2 of meeting someone in a relationship,

Speaker 2 there's a spectrum, but some people, we can get a little, we can get really crazy during this time. We can get incredibly obsessive and we don't.

Speaker 2 We're not taught in school how to process our enthusiasm. So then we start, you know, the the crush begins and we start thinking that we can't live without this person and they are the one and

Speaker 2 that whole narrative. When really what is happening is that you have chemistry with someone and that rush of hormones and that rush of excitement has very little to do, as I said, with them.

Speaker 2 And love is not just a feeling. Love is actually a verb.
It's an intentional practice. It's something we do love.
We don't just feel love.

Speaker 2 And that thing that you feel in the beginning is not love.

Speaker 2 You know, people are like, oh, we have such an amazing connection. Well, great.
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. I mean, we have a very fleeting experience on this earth.

Speaker 2 And, you know, that's a lot of fun. But we also have to adapt and we have to process the fact that what we're experiencing is,

Speaker 2 you know, it's not love, it's chemistry, it's attraction.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 people think,

Speaker 2 so let's say the honeymoon stage of a relationship, say, lasts anywhere three months to six months, maybe nine months, you know, it's depending.

Speaker 2 And when we start to wake up from that,

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 drunkenness that we are, you know, we're like drunk on lust and excitement. And when we start to emerge, we start to sober up.
And then we realize, oh, like

Speaker 2 you're just a, you know, you're a person and you have flaws and, you know, and you're not, you're not coming to save me. And, you know, you're not better than me.

Speaker 2 Cause we sometimes we want to meet that person who's in some way better than us When the truth is, you're just going to choose the person who's on a similar level of consciousness as your own.

Speaker 2 And even if you did meet someone who's better than you, they're not going to want to be in a relationship with you.

Speaker 2 So, and no one's inherently better than you, but you know what I mean. Someone who maybe has dealt with their childhood stuff, you know, and has their life in order, and maybe you don't, right?

Speaker 2 So, we wake up from that, from that euphoria,

Speaker 2 and then we think, oh, this isn't fun. Like you're not, you know,

Speaker 2 and then all the expectations come and you're like, well, you're not, you're not making me happy.

Speaker 2 And that depression that I had, you know, two days before I met you that magically went away when I met you, it's come back. There must be something wrong with you or this must not be love.

Speaker 2 And people are operating like this more than you think.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 know exactly what you're talking about. There's this.

Speaker 1 It's so funny, listeners of the show, the OG, OG listeners from seven years ago when we first started it,

Speaker 1 will know a friend of mine, Johnny, who's been on the show quite a lot. And he once said this thing to me, and it's taken probably until now for me to actually realize that it was true.

Speaker 1 He said he saw a lot of his friends kind of going through the same cycle, which was between a

Speaker 1 12 to 18 month relationship. that had a good amount of commitment.
And then they got toward the end of that and things just didn't seem as exciting anymore. And there was some conflict.

Speaker 1 And then they assumed that that meant that it's because, well, we're not compatible, and there's something wrong.

Speaker 1 And then they'd sort of kick the can down the road and then just restart the whole thing over and over again. And

Speaker 1 yeah, I think we really need to look at ourselves during the first six to 12 months of a relationship more like drug addicts than people able to make rational decisions.

Speaker 1 You know, you're a drug addict, but you also happen to be the deal around the user.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. That's actually well said.
It's very true. And yeah, that's very true.

Speaker 2 Unless, unless, you know, you get into a relationship and you're someone who realizes this, unless you read my book or unless you read other people's books, right? And you're like, I understand that

Speaker 2 what I'm actually looking for is not just this feeling. I'm looking for someone who

Speaker 2 will challenge me in the best possible ways.

Speaker 2 Not challenge me to the point where, you know, every single wound in my body is triggered because we because of whatever is going on between the two of us, but they challenge me to actually step up.

Speaker 2 They challenge me to be a better person.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 we have the same values, and this is someone who I can build with.

Speaker 2 And immature love,

Speaker 2 immature love says, I am in love with my projected idealization of you. And the moment you show me that you're real, I'm going to pull away.

Speaker 2 And mature love says, I see all of you. I see your nuance.
I see your shortcomings. I see your brilliance.
I see your quirks. I see your past.
And I choose you.

Speaker 1 It's

Speaker 1 people don't often talk about this. You know, there's a lot of criticism around giving up too easily.

Speaker 1 You're not sticking about, whether it's in a marriage or with family or just in a relationship that's maybe going to turn into one of those things. But very few people are saying

Speaker 1 or coaching people on how to bring yourself back down to earth during the first few months. It's like

Speaker 1 don't work harder. You almost need to sort of be less enamored with your partner as opposed to more enamored with your partner somehow.

Speaker 1 But one of the things I think a lot of people will feel is that deceleration as they move from the passionate to the companionate attraction system or go from lust to love or get out of the honeymoon

Speaker 1 period or stop infatuation, whatever terminology you want to use. How do you advise the people that you work with? Or how do you come to think about sort of managing that altitude change?

Speaker 1 Because you are going to feel it.

Speaker 1 Yes. It wouldn't work for you to be infatuated with your partner for the rest of time.
You get nothing done.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you get nothing. Well, you get nothing done.
And actually, you'd get pretty bored because we just don't want to be in one state the entire time. It's very destabilizing to feel that way.

Speaker 2 It's not exactly happiness. Like we feel that euphoria in the beginning, but in that euphoria also comes a lot of instability.
And so that's where people get also very stressed out.

Speaker 2 And so you're right.

Speaker 2 How people cope with the transition from the honeymoon stage to the more committed, comfortable stage of a relationship largely determines the longevity of that relationship.

Speaker 2 And so how do I tell, what do I tell people?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 2 you know, it's funny because I love that comfortable stage of the relationship. I mean, I wanted to, I don't want it to be too comfortable, but I like that.

Speaker 2 So it's, you know, so I just try to tell people: look,

Speaker 2 it's

Speaker 2 now you can focus on work as well.

Speaker 1 You get your life back. Hooray.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you get your life back. And now, and now you can actually,

Speaker 2 now's when you can explore real emotional connection and intimacy.

Speaker 2 Now's where you can actually build trust and camaraderie. Now, and it doesn't mean you're always going to have to work to keep the passion alive, but now you can actually

Speaker 2 explore things that you can go deeper. You can go deeper.

Speaker 2 And you can explore what a true emotional connection is, what it means to build safety and trust and respect inside of a relationship, what it means to have

Speaker 2 someone really be in your corner. And not just because they're afraid to lose you, but because they truly, truly love and support you.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I think that's exciting.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think I have something else I want to say, but after you said it, but this is important.

Speaker 1 Just that

Speaker 1 people

Speaker 1 who want to

Speaker 1 who can see the spark or the excitement in that way, that kind of like high euphoria state,

Speaker 1 to reframe it as look at all of the things it now opens us up to do that we couldn't do previously, I think is a is a really lovely reframe.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 and it's very true. And one thing that I will add is this.

Speaker 2 This is also what you're at great risk of is taking your partner for granted.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 this is,

Speaker 2 you know, stop, don't stop pursuing your partner. Don't stop being curious about this person.

Speaker 2 Yeah, maybe you're not in that. crazy stage, but

Speaker 2 you still, because you can go deeper and because actually love and trust can really grow,

Speaker 2 you still have to be very present and you still have to,

Speaker 2 you know, in the beginning, we're all the ambassadors of ourselves. We're like, let me just bring, like, you know, let me put my best foot forward.

Speaker 2 What if you continued to want to or to try to put your best foot forward years in?

Speaker 2 What would that look like? And what would that feel like?

Speaker 1 Number four, you have to love yourself. Self-love is actually all that it's cracked up to be.
We need it to thrive in a relationship.

Speaker 2 So there's two camps of thought that's sort of percolating in the zeitgeist. One is you don't have to love yourself to love anyone else.
You don't have to love yourself to be loved by someone else.

Speaker 2 And all of that is true. You learn to love yourself while you're in a relationship.

Speaker 2 Then there's another camp that says you have to love yourself in order to love someone else or in order to be in a relationship. Both are wrong, and both are true in their own way.

Speaker 2 You don't have to completely love yourself in order. There's lots of people who don't love themselves who love plenty of people,

Speaker 2 and there are lots of people who don't love themselves who are loved by others. But you better believe that if you don't, if you really struggle to see your value,

Speaker 2 that you allow and you tolerate crappy things in a relationship, you're in trouble because our relationships reflect how we feel about ourselves. So, I think of self-love as self-acceptance.

Speaker 2 I see it as, look, you know,

Speaker 2 straddling that very delicate line between

Speaker 2 understanding that you have work to do and there are things that you can improve on and quite possibly absolutely need to improve on.

Speaker 2 And yet, that doesn't diminish your value as a human being in any way. That doesn't diminish your worth.
And self-acceptance is learning to

Speaker 2 sort of hold ourselves in high enough regard without, even though there are things about ourselves that we may not like. Self-esteem is critical for a relationship.

Speaker 2 If it's too high, you have the narcissist. But in my world, what I see a lot more of is too low.
And if it's too low, then you are

Speaker 2 pretending to be someone who you're not,

Speaker 2 running away from intimacy, tolerating abusive or borderline abusive behavior. So it is a very important conversation to be had.

Speaker 1 What,

Speaker 1 how much is it the job of the other person to help you build you up? and build your self-esteem up? Is this not supposed to be a dyad?

Speaker 1 Should it not be a case that we can go to them, flawed and broken as we are, and they will help us to put the pieces back together?

Speaker 1 It seems like there's a degree of reliance on the other person, but also

Speaker 1 you have to sort yourself out first.

Speaker 1 How do we balance that?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 it's not an easy answer.

Speaker 2 I believe that the best relationships involve people who have a strong sense of self,

Speaker 2 but that doesn't mean that they don't have parts of them that that are

Speaker 2 wounded.

Speaker 2 But we can't get into a relationship and expect another flawed person to put all the pieces back together.

Speaker 2 But I do believe that we can get into a relationship with the expectation that we are going to hold each other's hands

Speaker 2 as and help each other out as we face our own demons and we face our own challenges.

Speaker 2 And so,

Speaker 2 look, there's a difference between someone

Speaker 2 needing to be built up by their partner all the time because they don't do anything, because they're not doing that thing that they need to be doing to help themselves, versus someone who's going through a really rough, or just, you know, having a rocky month, you know, and needing their partner to kind of be like their.

Speaker 2 their greatest fan in that moment. So context matters.

Speaker 2 And I, and I know that that's not popular because so many people want the black and or white answer and they want the like how-to, but there's nuance here.

Speaker 2 But know that no one can actually fill all your voids.

Speaker 1 It feels like this is related to your fifth point. You need to speak up and tell the truth.
If we hide what we see, feel, or need, a relationship will spiral quickly.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 I've lied a lot in my relationships. And what I mean by lied is

Speaker 2 I'm not, I don't think of myself as a liar. I don't like lie.
I don't tell, I don't say something that isn't true,

Speaker 2 but I don't divulge the whole truth of, I haven't divulged the whole truth of what I was feeling in the past because

Speaker 2 number one, I didn't, I didn't even know that

Speaker 2 it was okay to have those needs. I didn't know how to express those needs.
Like I was so disconnected from that. So it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to like not tell the truth on purpose.

Speaker 2 But every time people are strategizing to get someone to be interested in them, you know, the mask, the ambassador of ourselves,

Speaker 2 people don't tell the truth because

Speaker 2 they're having a hard time processing something, or they're just so afraid. If I say what I feel,

Speaker 2 she's going to be so hurt and she's going to leave me. Or he's not going to, or he's going to become so defensive and not be able to have a conversation with me.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to bottle it up

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 I'm just going to be easy.

Speaker 2 Or I'm just going to repress how I feel because,

Speaker 2 you know, who am I to have feelings? Who am I to have needs?

Speaker 2 So people aren't doing this consciously and they're not necessarily doing it on purpose. They're doing it because

Speaker 2 they don't know the alternative.

Speaker 1 How can people become more comfortable with speaking the truth?

Speaker 2 Well, one, by recognizing that the alternative is worse. By not speaking the truth, you become resentful.
By not speaking the truth, your relationship deteriorates.

Speaker 2 By not speaking the truth, you betray yourself. And by not speaking the truth, in many ways, you

Speaker 2 betray your partner because then they don't know how to contribute to your happiness. They don't know how to contribute to the emotional bank account of your relationship.

Speaker 2 So there's a very big price to pay in not speaking the truth. And the way to do it is to be direct

Speaker 2 and truthful. And also, you know, sometimes you'll have to be very vulnerable.

Speaker 2 I'm not into the whole stoic thing. You know, it's not about being stoic.

Speaker 2 No one, you know, in a romantic relationship, stoic doesn't get you very far, vulnerability gets you far.

Speaker 1 That's the case. Why, why does the sort of

Speaker 1 stiffer, stronger, self-sufficiency thing not get you far in a relationship?

Speaker 2 Well, not when it comes to difficult conversations. I mean, it has a place, you know, when you have to make a decision about something.
Sometimes bringing that to a relationship can be very useful,

Speaker 2 you know, but when it comes to difficult conversations about feelings and about

Speaker 2 needs,

Speaker 2 you have to be able to

Speaker 2 people bond

Speaker 2 when they open up their hearts to each other and they open up their inner worlds to each other. If you're always hiding behind the mask of stoicism,

Speaker 2 then it's just a wall. It's just another self-protective measure.
And it's like, it's emotional and availability.

Speaker 2 It has its place in life. It has its place in pockets in a relationship.

Speaker 2 But that's not how people build trust with each other. They build trust when

Speaker 2 you are able to open up about something that's important to you. And then it's received.

Speaker 2 It's received with care. It's received with interest.
It's received with love.

Speaker 2 That's how you build trust with another person.

Speaker 1 Does it mean sometimes we're going to have to

Speaker 1 sort of move at the same speed as our partner that we can't say more to them than they're able to receive? And if we try to do that and it is kind of unrequited or it's not very well absorbed,

Speaker 1 that's going to make us more scared about doing it next time. So

Speaker 1 we need to tolerate that and regulate how quickly and how much we do.

Speaker 2 So let me backtrack a little bit. We're training our partners all the time.

Speaker 2 All the time.

Speaker 2 Every time

Speaker 2 your partner opens up to you about something or just wants to share about their day and you're just like, you know,

Speaker 2 reading something and barely looking up, you're training your partner to not do that anymore. You're training your partner to now start to withhold their experience.

Speaker 2 So, I think that if you're sharing something and someone is not able to receive it,

Speaker 2 again,

Speaker 2 that feeds into the conversation.

Speaker 2 You could say something like,

Speaker 2 it seems like, or it appears that this is difficult for you to hear right now. Is that true?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 part of being a mature, high-functioning adult in a relationship is being able to have that kind of conversation.

Speaker 2 And you might say, you know what? Yeah, like I think that was really hard for me to receive. Maybe I just need a moment or maybe I didn't need you to ask you some questions.

Speaker 2 When you're getting to know someone, like in the beginning,

Speaker 2 you're sort of testing the waters

Speaker 2 and maybe opening up a little bit to see how they receive you opening up. And then maybe you see that they don't receive it that well.

Speaker 2 And that, and then you might be in the, you might be, it's not a guarantee, but you might be in the presence of someone who's A,

Speaker 2 not actually that interested in you as you would hope them to be, or two, or B, they're not what is so commonly and popularly referred to as emotionally unavailable.

Speaker 2 Now, that doesn't mean that everyone is is going to be as emotive. There's lots of men of a certain generation who are just not as emotive as women are.

Speaker 2 I think that there needs, there has, men have to learn how to become more emotive, but what's more important is that they become very good listeners.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I think we all have to

Speaker 2 we all have to figure out what we can and cannot tolerate in a relationship. But

Speaker 2 have, you know it's called a heart to heart for a reason you know when two people have a heart to heart

Speaker 2 they're opening up their inner worlds to each other and typically what is associated to a heart with a heart to heart is after that heart to heart there's closeness

Speaker 2 there's more love

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 It's important.

Speaker 1 You've worked with a lot of women, thousands of women.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and a lot of men, actually.

Speaker 1 What is it that,

Speaker 1 you know, there's a lot of rumors around on the internet about what it is that women are really looking for, and this is what they're publicly prepared to say.

Speaker 1 You know, this is what's acceptable, but really what they want is this behind the scenes. I would imagine somebody that works from a

Speaker 1 relationship coaching, counseling perspective has about of a transparent view into what it is that women are actually saying that they wish that they could have had in that relationship or what they're looking for in this next one, or what the partner that they're just starting to date is or is not giving them.

Speaker 1 And this is why it makes me feel good or bad.

Speaker 1 What is it that you wish more men knew about what women want from relationships?

Speaker 2 Women want safety. This is very important.

Speaker 2 Men do not understand

Speaker 2 the role that safety plays in a woman's life.

Speaker 1 We,

Speaker 2 you know, walking down, we could be in the best neighborhood

Speaker 2 in the world. We could be in a safe town.
We could be in a city. If we're walking down the street and it's empty,

Speaker 2 our antenna is up.

Speaker 2 It doesn't even matter if

Speaker 2 it's broad daylight.

Speaker 2 That's something that a man, that most men, can't even begin to wrap their heads around.

Speaker 2 I'm going to go to an empty parking lot by myself. No way.
I don't care if it's 12 o'clock in the afternoon. If I don't see anyone around and I'm in the parking lot, it's empty.

Speaker 2 Am I walking to my car alone?

Speaker 2 I might be running.

Speaker 2 And so, this is the reality of women. And

Speaker 2 biologically, you know, women, it's like we have the babies.

Speaker 2 We want to make sure that the babies are protected. We want to make sure that we're in a relationship with someone who will protect us.

Speaker 2 This is partially biological.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 how does that translate into the modern world? Well,

Speaker 2 women

Speaker 2 want a partner who is,

Speaker 2 and we're talking about male partners, right? So,

Speaker 2 we want your presence.

Speaker 2 So, this is going to sound very simple, and maybe you've heard it before,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 2 you fixing the problem

Speaker 2 is not what you think it is. Because a lot of men, there's a problem, they want to fix it.

Speaker 2 Or, you know, we're having, maybe we're having, we're overwhelmed. And what most men do is they come to

Speaker 2 come to the rescue and say, I know how to make it so that you're less overwhelmed. You just have to do one, two, and three.
You'll be less overwhelmed. And the funny thing is, he's right.

Speaker 2 A lot of the time he's right.

Speaker 2 But we know that already. What we need in that moment is someone just to listen or to give us a hug

Speaker 2 and to

Speaker 2 have presence with us. That's like, and then

Speaker 2 we can maybe calm down and enter our more rational minds because women are perfectly capable of rationality. But at first, you know, we might be be feeling like that intensity of emotion.

Speaker 2 And here's, and here's a thing about emotions that probably the number one thing that women complain about, if you will, their male partners, that they wish that they had more of, that men need to know is,

Speaker 2 I wish my emotions didn't scare him off.

Speaker 2 If I had a dime, for every time I've heard that those, that phrase in some way spoken to me, and that I've thought it,

Speaker 2 I would have so many dimes. I would have enough dimes to feed the world kind of thing, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 I wish

Speaker 2 that I could be in a bad mood

Speaker 2 and he wouldn't take it personally.

Speaker 2 I think, and I would, this is my experience, and I would love to hear your thoughts, Chris, is that a lot of men, when they get into relationships with their female partners, there's an unconscious

Speaker 2 need

Speaker 2 for their woman to be happy because they feel so responsible for our happiness.

Speaker 2 And I think that, you know, what I've been told by many men personally and professionally, that

Speaker 2 what he's most drawn to is when we're relaxed and we're smiling and we're happy.

Speaker 2 but we can't we women we can't be happy all the time and sometimes we get anxious and stressed and we have a very delicate hormonal system and you know we just we have a different mind we have something called diffuse awareness or we're taking in we feel responsible for everyone and everything and we're very and we're we're not so women have the capacity to go into the part of the brain that's very singular focused, but we also have this incredible curse/slash gift to just juggle like 50 million things at once.

Speaker 2 And so we're not always going to be happy, also because we're a human being. And a lot of women have said, he can't handle it.

Speaker 2 He gets very reactive when I'm not happy.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so that's it.

Speaker 2 Those are the things.

Speaker 1 It's interesting.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure about the happiness thing, but I certainly know that peace is something that I think a lot of guys try to optimize for. And that,

Speaker 1 yeah, dealing with the whirlwind that can be a woman's emotions disrupts the peace sometimes. And learning how both people can regulate to kind of bring that back down to earth

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 2 very important. But a whirlwind of emotions doesn't always have to be drama.

Speaker 2 You know, I've certainly worked with a lot of women to stop bringing drama. There's a lot of men who bring drama, but yes, optimizing peace.
But do they really want peace?

Speaker 1 I mean, depends who you are. Depends what your nervous system set point is.
I have some friends that like the chaos.

Speaker 1 I have some friends that use that as a proxy for excitement, for love, for where they feel the most engaged. It's something that's interesting.

Speaker 1 I'm firmly in camp peace, but that's not necessarily for everyone. That being said, uh,

Speaker 1 Whitney Cummings told me this story, which was really great. She was

Speaker 1 stress-checked,

Speaker 1 I guess, stress-tested, uh, by a football player that she was dating, maybe a few years ago, I don't know how long ago.

Speaker 1 And she'd been sort of yapping and yapping and yapping, and sort of playing this, playing up this kind of like Hollywood starlet style thing.

Speaker 1 And there'd always be something, there was always something going on, there was always something fiery happening.

Speaker 1 And she turned to him and she said, Well, like, you know, if you're dating me, it's because you want a challenge. You know, like, I'm the girl that you come to if you want a challenge.

Speaker 1 And he turned to her and he said, What sort of guy wants a challenge in his long-term relationship?

Speaker 1 And she was like, He's a guy that spends his days at the training ground and his evenings playing a difficult game. He has enough challenge already.

Speaker 1 He's delivering the maximum amount of challenge that he wants.

Speaker 1 Coming home and finding that there is more challenge being put on you than this person needs, that they're playing up some additional level of, you know, they're choosing to not do any of the regulation themselves.

Speaker 1 I think, um,

Speaker 2 no, no, that's a problem. I don't, I don't believe that she, but her saying that is, I don't believe that, you know, it's not, it's not necessarily true.

Speaker 1 In other words, that she had the choice.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, it's like, well.

Speaker 2 If you say, if you say,

Speaker 2 put her that aside, if you're you're saying, well, the men who want me want to challenge, well, what does that actually really mean?

Speaker 2 Like, to me, that, that's saying, well, you're not willing to actually do the work to actually bring some harmony into this relationship. I'm not speaking about Whitney.
I'm just saying in general.

Speaker 2 You know, that's a lovely excuse. I mean, we're all challenging.
You know, we,

Speaker 2 one of them, you have to ask yourself, how am I difficult to live with? Because, you know, we're all difficult in some way to live with.

Speaker 1 and i think that having some level of awareness of how we are difficult to live with and then and being able to say to our partner like i love you for putting up with this part of me yeah like that's where it's at one of the most beautiful things that you could say yeah to be able to see your own flaw and then to appreciate the fact that this person has just wordlessly wordlessly decided that they are going to continue to swallow whatever it is that you do.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 two Alain de Boton quotes. The first one being, he says, on every first date, you should ask the other person, in what ways are you mad? He says that

Speaker 1 one of the greatest delusions that single people have is that they're actually perhaps quite an easy person to live with. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Look, and some people are easier to live with than others. They just are.
But

Speaker 2 we all come to the table with stuff. And I think that it's just a matter of when it comes to choosing a partner, you know, a lot of people don't

Speaker 2 know how to differentiate between the tolerable and the intolerable

Speaker 2 because they didn't learn that. You know, they saw their one or both of their parents tolerate a lot.

Speaker 2 And so, one of the things, if you

Speaker 2 keep having, if one keeps having these sort of disappointing relationships, these very painful relationships,

Speaker 2 one of the things to explore is

Speaker 2 knowing where your limit is in terms of what you can tolerate. Because

Speaker 2 we should have a lot of flexibility and tolerate a lot in a relationship, but you need to know that chunk of whatever that you just won't tolerate. You know?

Speaker 1 You need to be your best self even after the honeymoon. Stress and fear can turn a secure relationship into a dysfunctional one.

Speaker 1 We have to make it a priority to show up as our higher selves as much as possible.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, this is what we were talking about a little bit before, which is that

Speaker 2 we put on, we are their best selves in the beginning, and then we get comfortable.

Speaker 2 And then we have this unconscious belief that this person

Speaker 2 that loves us

Speaker 2 should love us no matter what.

Speaker 2 So even if I'm coming to the relationship consistently, and I really want to emphasize consistently, because we will do this sometimes, consistently stressed, moody,

Speaker 2 irritable,

Speaker 1 cold.

Speaker 2 Why would you expect anyone to put up with that on a consistent basis?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 relationships are what we make of them.

Speaker 2 And they need attention.

Speaker 2 And they need attention in the form of our mindfulness.

Speaker 2 And that means that we're not going to be perfect,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 you can't do

Speaker 2 all these wonderful things in the beginning

Speaker 2 and then stop doing them and expect your relationship to be a good relationship.

Speaker 2 It's really as simple as that.

Speaker 2 And this is what people do. This is what I've never met anyone who's never who hasn't done this,

Speaker 2 who hasn't.

Speaker 2 That's a law of familiarity.

Speaker 2 We get used to something and we start to take it for granted.

Speaker 2 We think, you know, we

Speaker 2 comfort is a wonderful thing in a relationship. Too much comfort often leads to the demise of a relationship.
Gets so comfortable that we think,

Speaker 2 you know, it's like how a lot of us can be around family. We can regress to our seven-year-old self and be a total shit and we know we're going to be loved anyway.

Speaker 2 People do that in their romantic relationships, and they and it's a mistake. It's a mistake to do it anyway, but it's really a mistake in your romantic relationship.

Speaker 2 So, we think, you know, we do forget, and I've said this before, we forget that the person that we love is a gift, and we think that they're a given.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that is just the law of familiarity. And it's because we become unconscious and mindless in our relationships.

Speaker 2 A relationship really has,

Speaker 2 we think that you go into a cave or you go into an ashram or you do some sort of,

Speaker 2 you know, psychedelic trip, that that's the spiritual work. No, the spiritual work is in a relationship.

Speaker 1 What's the stress and fear bit?

Speaker 1 turning a secure relationship into a dysfunctional one. I understand that,

Speaker 1 yeah, familiarity breeds like

Speaker 1 laziness in a way,

Speaker 1 but how does stress and fear play a role there?

Speaker 2 In the honeymoon stage of a relationship,

Speaker 2 there's this illusion that all our stress goes away

Speaker 2 because this person has come into our life and we feel that euphoria and we feel so excited and it's new

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 then our stress comes back

Speaker 2 and we might put on a really brave face or we we are we treat our co-workers great

Speaker 2 we treat we we smile at a stranger on the street And then we come home and we're like, let me just unload all my stress on you.

Speaker 2 Or we come home and we think, I don't have to actually be really that nice to you.

Speaker 2 Law of familiarity.

Speaker 2 Very, very hard, sad, and stressful things can happen in life.

Speaker 2 But more times than not,

Speaker 2 people are not reacting to something difficult.

Speaker 2 They are

Speaker 2 in a habit of just being reactive to everything.

Speaker 2 So their threshold for stress is really low.

Speaker 2 And maybe it is, there is something stressful like money and children.

Speaker 2 People don't know how to manage their stress. And so they start to fight with each other.

Speaker 2 And they start to create negative stories about each other.

Speaker 2 Or they start to

Speaker 2 look at their partner and see everything that is wrong about them.

Speaker 2 When what's really going on is a turbulent mind. What's really going on is a turbulent nervous system.
What's really going on is stress in that person's body.

Speaker 2 That is making it so that they are not seeing life and their partner clearly.

Speaker 2 this is what ends relationships: is not knowing how to handle stress

Speaker 2 and not knowing and not identifying when stress is the problem versus the actual relationship.

Speaker 1 And I suppose because that person's so close to us, and because we're familiar, and because we hope/slash know that they're not going, we can use them as an emotional crutch, punching bag.

Speaker 2 yes

Speaker 2 and and also because

Speaker 2 you know

Speaker 2 it's very common

Speaker 2 if a family is going through let's say money problems

Speaker 2 for that to tear

Speaker 2 mom and dad apart or mom and mom apart to tear the couple apart

Speaker 2 it's not

Speaker 2 So it's the it's how they were reacting to life, which I have nothing but compassion for, one of the things that we just don't learn in school.

Speaker 2 It's how they were reacting to life that made it so that they were, I mean, think about it when you're really stressed. You don't want to be touched.
You don't want to be told what to do.

Speaker 2 You're not feeling sexual. You're not feeling sensual.
You're not feeling open. You're not feeling loving.
You become totally self-involved and emotionally unavailable.

Speaker 2 And you've got two people like that on a consistent basis.

Speaker 2 Then this is what's going to happen. The relationship is going to suffer.
And it's because of how they're actually dealing with the birth of their first child.

Speaker 2 It's how they're dealing with the money problems. It's how they're dealing with certain things that, and these things might be real problems that are highly systemic.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 we think that

Speaker 2 once the stress gets better, that the relationship will get better when the truth is how we,

Speaker 2 how we, it's how we respond or react to what's happening in life that will ultimately improve the relationship.

Speaker 2 And sometimes, you know, families and couples really need help to deal with

Speaker 2 very big things.

Speaker 2 But like I said,

Speaker 2 you'd be shocked to learn that often it's not something

Speaker 2 legitimately stressful, like you lost all your money, or you can't buy groceries, or your child is sick. You know, these are real things.

Speaker 2 Oftentimes, I'm seeing it all the time in couples who are like

Speaker 2 stressed out about

Speaker 2 nothing.

Speaker 1 You cannot convince someone to love you as much as we try.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's the law of the land.

Speaker 2 You cannot convince anyone to love you.

Speaker 2 You can't beg them to love you. You can try to jump through whatever hoops you want to get them to love you.
You can try to change yourself

Speaker 2 to get them to love you or to choose you.

Speaker 2 You can use your kids as pawns to get them to stay. I mean, you could try all you can, but it's impossible to convince someone to love you.

Speaker 1 The ruthless other side of this, and I was texting Connor Beaton about this

Speaker 1 90 minutes ago. Ah, lovely.

Speaker 1 We were just talking about this on the way in, and I was basically talking about the same but in reverse that it's true you can't convince anybody to love you but you also can't convince yourself to love anybody either and i said if you can't get what you want you can will yourself to get what you can get

Speaker 1 but you can't will yourself to want what you can get like you you don't get to make yourself and there's a lot of times you know i've spoken to friends that have been in relationships previously but dude you know what it is she's so amazing for me she ticks all of the boxes i

Speaker 1 I don't know what it is. I've tried and I've tried and I feel awful and guilty and I'm wrecked with fear and shame about it.

Speaker 1 And I'm probably going to move on to some chick that is going to be none of the things that I think that I'm supposed to want, but I can't help the way that I feel.

Speaker 1 And I just don't feel the right way about this person.

Speaker 1 Relationships or the way that we feel about people and desire happens bottom up, not top down.

Speaker 1 And yeah, as much as we wish that it was a dictatorship, a lot of the time, unfortunately, it's a democracy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's very true. Although we have to use a little bit more of this head, for sure, when we're making these decisions.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's very true. I mean, you just can't

Speaker 2 make yourself love someone. You can't make yourself feel those feelings.

Speaker 2 And you can't convince someone to choose you. And people are doing it all the time

Speaker 2 in very subtle ways.

Speaker 2 They're trying to seduce, they're trying to convince, they're trying to change themselves. And there's so much grace

Speaker 3 in

Speaker 2 accepting, even if it shatters your heart,

Speaker 2 accepting this truth.

Speaker 2 And life becomes a lot easier when you

Speaker 2 adopt this

Speaker 2 law into your DNA, basically.

Speaker 1 No one is coming to save you. A relationship is meant to make us happier, not happy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I think that people intellectually understand this, but

Speaker 2 people do get into relationships thinking that

Speaker 2 the relationship is going to be the thing that fulfills them, and that the person is going to be the person who fulfills them, that there's this perfect person who's going to come in and rescue you.

Speaker 2 And again, even though we know logically that's not the case,

Speaker 2 we do in many ways

Speaker 2 have this fantasy that when this right person comes into our lives,

Speaker 2 everything's going to be better.

Speaker 2 Or when our partner is, you know, not able to,

Speaker 2 you know, it's just not making us feel all delightful and happy one day, that somehow it's their responsibility to do that.

Speaker 2 Fulfillment can only come from the inside. It really, I mean, we get fulfillment and happiness from various sources and from doing various things.

Speaker 2 But there's no one who is coming. There's no knight in shining armor.
There's no, um, there's no one who's coming to

Speaker 2 to save you. And look, we've seen so many movies.
There's a movie that I reference in the book because I think it is so perfect. And it's interesting because

Speaker 2 it's a guy expecting to be rescued, which I think goes against what's more commonly thought about as like the woman, you know, in the damsel in distress.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you ever saw the movie 500 Days of Summer. No, it's a fantastic movie that really incredibly illustrates this point, which is

Speaker 2 he's a guy, he's got he's totally depressed,

Speaker 2 He's got no purpose in life. He hates his job.
He has a passion that he's not pursuing. And so he's in this job that he can't stand.
And then this girl comes in and she's like,

Speaker 2 you know, beautiful and cute. And he's just like, from the moment he sees her, he's just like, he's done.
Right.

Speaker 2 And so his whole, the whole movie is him trying to convince her to love him because she's just not that, she's like, dates him and sleeps with him, but she's just you can tell she's not all in.

Speaker 2 And on the surface, what it looks like is, oh, something's wrong with her, she's totally avoidant. Um, you know, what's wrong with her? You know, he's such a nice guy.

Speaker 2 And what's really going on is that she's not even a fully formed character, she's a metaphor

Speaker 2 for

Speaker 2 him needing to be rescued

Speaker 2 because then, and what she does is

Speaker 2 she mirrors back to him

Speaker 2 why she doesn't choose him. Like, she never says it, but of course, the reason is, is because

Speaker 1 he's desperate

Speaker 2 for his happiness in her.

Speaker 2 And he's desperate to use her. He's the user.
He's using her to escape his own misery.

Speaker 2 And it's only after she breaks up with him

Speaker 2 that he is able to actually confront himself.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 it's a great movie to watch that illustrates the point that,

Speaker 2 you know, we do try to

Speaker 2 escape ourselves through relationships. That could be someone's pattern that's more than someone else's pattern.

Speaker 2 A relationship

Speaker 2 can't actually make you happy. No one can really make you happy.
But the expectation, the healthy expectation is this person is adding to my life.

Speaker 2 They're making my path a little better.

Speaker 2 But they're not, but no one can walk the path but me.

Speaker 2 And I think that this is going to be the hardest truth in many ways, except for the last one for people to face because people are very resistant because they think, oh, no, I don't expect that.

Speaker 2 No, I understand that.

Speaker 2 But then watch, look at your relationship history or look at your current relationship.

Speaker 2 How many times have you been resentful towards your current partner because they're not making you happy in that moment?

Speaker 1 The final one, which you say, and I is kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 You know, we've talked about relationships throughout this, some inner work who sort of nodded toward attachment stuff, previous patterns, breakups, expectations, even romance culture.

Speaker 1 And then, for no reason, you decide to assault everybody's most raw wound,

Speaker 1 which is we must make peace with our parents. Grief the parent you never had, be open to looking at them differently, have a conversation with them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so

Speaker 2 making peace with your parent is making peace with, is reframing and investigating the story that you've had about one or both of your parents that may be,

Speaker 2 um, that may have a chokehold on you and release, emancipating yourself from the prison of your own mind and of this story that you have about them.

Speaker 2 You could have a great relationship with your parents and peace with your parents might mean that you break up with your parents metaphorically as the leaders of your belief system. So

Speaker 2 They always wanted you to be a doctor, but in your heart, you are an artist, but you've but and and you've been living your life as a doctor miserable because that's what your parents wanted.

Speaker 2 And you decide, you know what, I love mom and dad, but I'm going to become an artist because the best way to really honor myself and my family is to be happy. So that's making peace with your parents.

Speaker 2 I put a disclaimer in this chapter. If you've been, if there's been severe abuse, if there's been any sort of molesting, I in no way

Speaker 2 put that expectation on you.

Speaker 2 I had an an extremely troubling relationship with my father, and much of my life was about

Speaker 2 trying

Speaker 2 to find some resolve there, which I was

Speaker 2 able to mostly do before he died a year ago. And,

Speaker 2 you know, our adult relationships will very much reflect our relationships with our parents. And

Speaker 2 it's important to

Speaker 2 look at your parents and to explore the relationship that you have with

Speaker 2 one or both of your parents through the filter of your adult self rather than just the filter of your

Speaker 2 little boy or little girl self.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it will, it will absolutely change your life. So that was a very, I wrote that that chapter

Speaker 2 as he was dying.

Speaker 2 He kind of died unexpectedly, but he died. I was writing that chapter and it was, I have a lot of case studies in there of all sorts of experiences with parents.
And, you know,

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 2 you have to start to

Speaker 2 think of them differently. And, you know, I lost, I lost both my parents, and I was close to my stepfather, and I lost him too.

Speaker 2 And one thing that I I learned about,

Speaker 2 and I was very close with my mom,

Speaker 2 but of course, I

Speaker 2 there's certain things that you know that mother-daughter relationships can be kind of complicated.

Speaker 2 And I learned something profound

Speaker 2 about

Speaker 2 relationships with parents after they died, which is that

Speaker 2 you kind of

Speaker 2 let go of some of the resentments

Speaker 2 that you had when they were alive.

Speaker 2 And you build a little compassion.

Speaker 2 You could decide to never speak to your parent again.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 you have to do that from a clear head,

Speaker 2 not from a place of reaction. Because I was estranged from my father for

Speaker 2 13 years or something

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 it did not help

Speaker 1 me

Speaker 2 what helped me was learning how to

Speaker 2 not be afraid of him

Speaker 2 and to investigate and to start to stand up for myself

Speaker 2 and to also

Speaker 2 start to examine the story that I've had about him for so many years. And that's what I try to explain in this chapter.

Speaker 1 What do you say to the people that sort of still

Speaker 1 worried that their parents are sort of coming toward the end of their lives? Maybe they've tried to approach conversations not too dissimilar to these previously, even the first couple of steps.

Speaker 1 And maybe they've not been received particularly well.

Speaker 1 And they've got this sort of balancing act in their mind where they go, go, can I even sort of bring this into land over the next, you know, five years ten years i don't know however long they've got left like am i just opening a can of worms that is going to have their parting memory of their role as my parent being one of failure and dissatisfaction and i'm going to bring up all of this stuff and it's going to feel like an attack on them and you know

Speaker 1 this is this is how i'm going to

Speaker 1 the swan song to mine and my parents relationship is maybe going to be me trying to do this selfish healing in a child bullshit. Can I not just put up with the piece and

Speaker 1 sort of leave it on the table?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I would say a third option, which is even better,

Speaker 2 let go of whatever story you have

Speaker 2 and start to accept them for who they are

Speaker 2 and grieve the parent that maybe you wish you had but didn't have and maybe ask them some questions about their life and their experience and start to relate to them differently.

Speaker 1 One of my friends this Christmas recorded, I think he did it with, maybe did it with both his mum and his dad, but separately. He recorded a two-hour podcast with each of his parents

Speaker 1 where he just said, tell me about your life. So what was growing up like? And he's recorded it in,

Speaker 1 not exactly publishable quality, but, you know, it's more than good enough for him. And he just wants to keep doing that.
And he's set himself a task of doing that every year now.

Speaker 1 He wants to have this archive of him talking to his parents about them and what it was like raising him. And, you know, he wants to have this sort of self-lib, self-knowledge library, I guess.

Speaker 2 Which I love that. Pretty cool.

Speaker 1 Yeah, very cool. The most podcast solution ever is to record a podcast with your parents to come up to heal your inner child.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's, you know, the whole healing your inner child thing. I mean, it's really about,

Speaker 1 yeah, well,

Speaker 2 again,

Speaker 2 you know, learning learning how to,

Speaker 2 it's hard, it's hard, you know, your parents as children, they're supposed to be our heroes, but then you grow up and you realize you're just a person, just like me.

Speaker 2 And maybe there can be some compassion there because of that.

Speaker 1 Well, if you know that, or if you have this sense, it's unfair. If not for the way that my parents raised me, I would have been dot, dot, dot, I would have been

Speaker 1 more balanced. I would have had secure attachment.
I would have not had my fears. I would have not had all the rest of it.
And you go, okay,

Speaker 1 well,

Speaker 1 just go back one generation. If you say that you're at the mercy of your parents,

Speaker 1 who are they at the mercy of? Absolutely. No, that's different because I'm, you know, they were supposed to look after me.
And it's like, yeah,

Speaker 1 you don't get to have it both ways.

Speaker 2 You don't have to have it both ways. And I know, you know, this might come off as corny, but, you know, fuck it.
It's really true, which is that

Speaker 2 what did you gain by not getting what it is that you needed?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 life is very mysterious. I know people who've had great parents and great upbringing and got everything that they want and they ended up being drug addicts.
How does that happen?

Speaker 2 And I know people who've had real abuse, like really messed up stuff, and they are, they have, they're very successful in their marriage. How does that happen?

Speaker 2 So life in many ways is a mystery and i certainly would not be sitting here today had i had the father that i wish i had i just wouldn't be there's i am convinced because i never would have

Speaker 2 had the the marriage that i had i wouldn't have chosen that man and i wouldn't have had that relationship that led to so much heartbreak that led me to delve into this work that led me here and i don't know if i ever would have, you know, I have a long history in teaching yoga and a yoga practitioner over 25 years.

Speaker 2 I don't know that I would have been seeking out that in my life had I not had the pain that I endured in childhood. You know, I don't know.
But I think that

Speaker 2 there is a resilience that comes with not

Speaker 1 getting

Speaker 2 what you deserve sometimes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's an interesting double-edged sword. I think a lot of the time people think, well, I wouldn't have this

Speaker 1 success,

Speaker 1 this sort of

Speaker 1 the work ethic, the resilience, all of that stuff,

Speaker 1 which has brought me all of these things that I really value in myself.

Speaker 1 I think an uncomfortable, deeper question is to say, well, would I have needed that had I have not been exposed to the difficulties in the first place? You go, right, okay. So

Speaker 1 I don't get to go back. So I can't change it.
So it's pointless. It's kind of a moot point in any case.

Speaker 1 So what you say is, what are the things, how can I take this thing that was bad and turn it into something that has lots of light sides to it, where the lighter side of the edge is better than the dark one.

Speaker 1 And then if I can get rid of that, then I do get to have my cake and eat it too.

Speaker 1 I get to get all of the advantages of the additional resilience and the self-supporting nature and the fact that I've had an impact and it's driven me to do things that I'm very proud of and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1 And I've let go of the trauma that sort of drove it in the first place.

Speaker 1 But if you don't do the second bit, if you don't do the going back and the healing bit, what you're stuck with is this sort of double-edged sword.

Speaker 2 Yes, absolutely. And look, that's life.
I mean, it truly is about

Speaker 2 making lemonade out of lemons. I mean, I hate to say it, but it is.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's what leads to a more fulfilling life is being able to take the things that have been hard and create some sort of meaning out of it.

Speaker 2 That's what it's all about.

Speaker 1 Jillian Tureki, ladies and gentlemen, Jillian, I really appreciate it. I think it's

Speaker 1 very much of the moment, touching on all of the things that everybody's interested in and stepping into the new year as well as a lot of winter relationships and spring relationships maybe beginning.

Speaker 1 It's very timely. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with everything you're doing and check out your work.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, of course, my book, It Begins With You, which I believe will be, is

Speaker 2 And you just need to know my name, Jillian Tureki. Find me on Instagram, all over social media.
My podcast, Jillian on Love.

Speaker 2 And yeah, that's where people can find me.

Speaker 1 Heck yeah. Jillian, I appreciate you.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 I appreciate you. Thank you.

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