5 Steps To Create A Beautiful Partnership & Find Love TODAY [MASTERCLASS] EP 1433

My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Your mindset is everything. And our brand new book, the Greatest Mindset, just hit the New York Times bestseller back to back weeks. And I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it, and have finished it already and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life 10 years ago at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and the book I'm glad I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy@lewis howes.com/2023 to get your copy today. Again, lewishowes.com/2023mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on audible now, so you can get it on audiobook as well over there also.

Because so often we're so ready to point the finger. Oh, this person's not giving as much as me. Oh, it's like, no, no, no. If life is a mirror, what is the mirror reflecting? What is a relationship reflecting? And oftentimes in my experience, relationship.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful. So let's go ahead and dive in. How do we learn to love ourselves so much that it doesn't matter what our partner does or doesn't do?

Oh, man. Lord have mercy.

Like, is there a way where you can fall in love with yourself without a sense of ego?

Yes.

Like, I'm I'm God. But yes, love yourself so much that it doesn't matter if your partner meets your expectations communicated or uncommunicated, whether they're supporting you in the way that you want or not, whether they're proud of you or not, is there a way that we could do that? Or should we be expecting something out of our relationship in return, you know, either way?

Bro, listen, listen, man. You know, listen, my views on this may be a little contrarian, so I'm.

Just gonna speak my truth. Contrarian. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of, so I'll answer the love question in a minute of self, but I want to hit the piece that you just hit, which is the expectation, right? Yes. I personally believe that if you give to get in a relationship, you are on thin ice and the sun is coming out. Because, right, right, right. Because again, What happens is you're not free. You're not free. You're not actually giving from your heart because that's what you want to do. You're giving from manipulation.

To get something in return.

Because it's to get something in return. So you're treating that relationship like the stock market, right? Well, yeah, if I give a certain amount of money to a certain stock or portfolio, I can expect a certain return.

Hopefully it goes up.

Right, hopefully it goes up, right? But that's the dynamic, you know? But relationship is not stocks, man. That's somebody's heart. That's somebody's life. And so when you're investing in someone with the hope that they'll do something for you, you're messed up.

What if that person never contributes in the way you contribute, let's say, after years? Is it the right relationship still?

Okay, this is true.

Should you let go of the expectation? Well, I don't need that in return. Great.

So here's how I think you answered that. And I want to hit the love part. So, I believe everyone should give freely from how they feel and want to feel and they give to that person because that's what's in their heart to do. Over time it's not an indictment on that person if that person isn't giving as much it just may be a revelatory about compatibility, right? It's like oh, okay, got it. you know, the person that's giving, right, I'm in a relationship, you're in a relationship because you have needs, you want those needs to be met. Oh, okay, I'm seeing there's an imbalance, right. Like, I feel great about everything I'm giving but I also recognize that there's some needs that are not being met and maybe there's some compatibility issues we.

Need to talk about. Or you can communicate about it and.

See if that's right. That's exactly right. Like, hey, you know, look, I have needs. I'm in a relationship because I want people to contribute to these needs. Like, I'm going to be fine no matter what but I'm in this relationship because I actually love the idea of someone else contributing to my well-being. So, you have to assess it and see if there's compatibility and alignment, not pointing the finger. Because so often we're so ready to point the finger. Oh, this person is not giving as much as me. Oh, it's like no, no, no. If life is a mirror, what is the mirror reflecting? What is a relationship reflecting? And oftentimes in my experience, relationships are the greatest teachers.

Greatest.

Of who we are.

Greatest.

Right. Who we are and who we aren't, okay? Like, like and too often people run from difficult relationships. I believe that you should whatever the lesson is you got to get about you before you break up.

Heal it within the relationship first.

There you go. Because then you take that healing to the next relationship. Yes. If your relationship is revealing your own brokenness and your issues that you got to deal with, and then you're saying to that other person, oh, it's your fault, that brokenness and that healing that you didn't do, you're taking it wherever you go.

That's going to be the cycle.

It's going to repeat.

So what should we do if we're in an environment of a relationship that is not working, that people are being triggered and there's arguments and fights and frustration, and you're just not able to see eye to eye, you're not facing the same direction, we shouldn't say, it's your fault, I don't deserve this piece out.

No, no.

What should we do? Internally, whether we're with that person long term or after three, six, 12 months, we realize this isn't the right fit, but I'm going out in a different way.

Yeah, so it goes back to the original question in this section, which was, how do you love yourself?

Ooh.

So there's a scripture that says that the whole Bible can be summed up in, you know, love the Lord God, your God, with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

Ooh, yeah. What does that mean?

This is so interesting. A lot of times- if you don't.

Love yourself, you're gonna love your neighbor with a lot of anger and frustration.

But this is why we see a lot of what we're seeing in our world. because we so focus on the neighbor part. But we don't focus on the self part. Love your neighbor as yourself, right? So, how can I love anybody well if I don't love me well? So, when we talk about loving somebody, so often in relationships or dating, we're looking to love someone, we're looking for someone to love us. But do you love you? Loving you, me loving me comes, it starts with appreciating who I am. Flaws and all. Going easy on myself. Too often we are the people that talk to ourselves the worst.

Worst, over and over.

Over and over. We would never let somebody talk to us as badly as we talk to ourselves. That's not love. Love is like, it's okay. Yeah, you know you've failed. Come on, get up. You're good. You're gonna be all right. All right. What did you learn? What do you gotta do differently? It's a lesson. It's not an indictment. Loving ourself, we come to find out, well, what do we like? What do I like to do? What are the things that contribute to my happiness? And let me prioritize those things. When we love ourselves, we really start to appreciate. We start to say, oh man, you know what? I'm gonna be all right. I'm gonna be okay. and so often we don't do that. We're looking for other people to do the work for us that we're not doing ourselves. That's why there's always this imbalance. That's why we can never really find contentment. Why? Because it starts here. Prayer, meditation, working out, eating right, whatever the things that contribute to your happiness. You and I have to make a committee of one to do those things. Period. Whatever those things are that bring you peace, don't wait. until your partner does it. Don't wait until you get in a relationship to focus on it. Do it now. And one of the biggest challenges is that if you are already in a relationship or you're in a marriage and it has become so codependent that you don't do anything unless they give you permission. Oh, you don't want to go work out? Okay, I won't go work out today. Oh, you want to cook? Oh, let's go, right? There's nothing wrong with wanting to do things together, but what are the things that you like to do?

Who are you?

What's in your heart? So, before you point the finger, hey, this is not working and you're the problem, everyone has to do a self-assessment and say, well, okay, well have I done my work? Am I doing my work? Do I love myself? What should we assess in that process?

What are the things we should be asking ourselves?

The thing you should be asking yourself when you are assessing who you are, one.

When you're frustrated in the relationship, when you're fighting, you're arguing, you're not seeing eye to eye. Oh, great. You think they're the problem.

Oh.

They're not understanding you. what should we ask ourselves?

Well, first of all, what am I actually frustrated about? Right, let's start there. What am I frustrated about? What are the problems that I am having? Because so often we don't even communicate with our, like we're not even clear, right? What the problems are. What are the areas of frustration? What are the problems? And then before you go and try to solve it, You then have to ask, what is my contribution? Because everyone is making a contribution to the very problems that they can't stand in their relationships.

What is my contribution to this problem?

Correct. What is my contribution to the problem? Because once we, 'cause it's so easy. It's easy to point the finger.

Yeah.

But it's really hard to point the finger back at ourselves. It's really hard and so, before you start doing hey, before you start doing this and you're not doing right and you're wrong and you're pointing the finger at whoever in the relationship with you start to do this assessment and say okay, what's really the problem? What's really... Have I not been communicative enough? Have I not set my expectations? Have I been too harsh? Like, you got to really start doing the assessment of yourself and then bring that conversation.

I think also to go even deeper is like, why is this triggering me?

Exactly.

Why is this a problem for me?

Yes.

Like, yes. Maybe it's not the other person's doing something to me, but the trigger of it is something I haven't healed or addressed from the past.

Yes.

And that's why I'm triggered.

Yes.

But they're just being them and, you know, depending on the situation, but it's like, what's the root? of this frustration for me.

Dude, this is so true. And this is why I talk about this in the book. I talk about how expectations are the secret software that run our life. And what I mean by that is that we don't actually sometimes react to life events. We react to our expectations of events. So if situations or people exceed our expectation, we're happy. If situations or people don't, we're devastated.

So what should we do? Have no expectations?

No, you can't do that because expectations are like blood pressure. You know, too high is not good, too low is not good. Because expectation, we need motivation. Expectations are our hope, right? So we do have to have hope, but we've got to set it properly. Because so often when our expectation is not set to your point that you made, we end up reacting based upon an unset expectation. And so, It's not that what the person is doing is wrong. It's that we have not set expectations for ourselves. We haven't identified what those triggers are. We haven't identified, oh, wait a minute. Wait a second. They're not the problem. It's how I'm looking at it is the problem. So in order to set expectations, I have every person that reads the book ask these two questions. One, is it realistic or unrealistic? How do you know? comes down to one word. This is how you determine if your expectation is realistic or unrealistic. Control.

What do you mean? Are you trying to be in control or...

If it's within your control to do it. You can expect it. It's a realistic expectation. If it's out of your control, you cannot expect it. So I'll give two examples. Your podcast is amazing. It's incredible. One of the most dynamic podcasts in the world.

Thank you.

No matter how hard you try, you cannot force somebody to go listen to it.

No, can't. I can hope. I can have a range of what I think people listen to.

Yes, I can have a target, I can have a goal. But if I put, if you put an expectation of like, hey, it's gotta be a million by next month, I would argue that's unrealistic because it's out of your control.

Right.

What's in your control? I want to produce the best podcast with the best conversations and the best guests with the best marketing and the best publicity all in your control realistic to expect. Now, let's apply that to people. You're in a relationship. [Mm.].

Yeah.

You know, I want this person to love me in a certain way. I want this person to you know have this amount of sex. I want this person to go work out. I want this person to go eat. I want this person.

Can't control that.

You can't control it.

You can communicate it, which is what set up the structure for it.

But you can't control it. And so often our expectations with others are unset. Why? Because we're trying to control what we don't. You and I only control ourselves and the remote. Wherever the remote, that's it. I can't control anybody else ever. and too often we spend so much energy trying to get someone to behave and live in the way that we want instead of behaving in the way that we want, right? Living the way that we want. And if we live the way that we want, then whoever we're in the relationship with, either that is going to compel them to say, hey, hey, you know what? I like what you're doing. And then you say, hey, I like what you're doing, so let's do that together. or it won't. But when we try to get somebody to be what we want them to be and do what we want them to do, that's called manipulation.

What happens when we are in a relation, when we are trying to control or manipulate someone else in an intimate relationship, or they're doing that to us? What happens?

What happens is love goes down. Fear rises. Here's what I mean by that. the fear of if I don't do this, they're going to leave. So, that person, you know, everyone has different degrees of self-determination. And so, in a relationship, when you've fallen in love and you really care about somebody and they're asking you to do something or be something, that could be a very compelling thing to do even when it's not who you are. And so, the fear of if I don't, will they leave? Okay, so then it becomes a performance-based relationship.

It's not good.

It's not good. I'm doing this because I don't want them to go, but I know it doesn't bring me joy. So it no longer is love leading the way. It's fear. It's fear. Okay, you know what? I'm going to do this because this is what they want and I'm going to become this. But every moment that I do it and it's not in my heart, is a moment that my soul gets crushed.

Ooh.

Every single moment.

This is my life. This is my life up until now where, you know, not all the time, but I could see a pattern in my past relationships where I would just do things to make the other person happy, even though I didn't want to do them because they were angry or upset or frustrated or whatever, they had some expectation. and I would sense like, man, the love is going down a little bit, a little bit. But when I took responsibility and accountability, I was like, but it's not their fault. I'm the one choosing to do these things because I'm afraid that they're gonna be angry at me or that they're gonna leave or they're not gonna love me. So it's my responsibility to stand in my truth in those tough, challenging moments when someone's like, you don't support me, you're not doing whatever they're saying. It's tough to do that. We're triggered. It's challenging. But I think if someone's gonna leave you by you standing in your truth and being frustrated by you constantly, then that's maybe not the right fit for you.

Well, not only is it potentially not the right fit, you gotta think about something. You gotta put yourself at the end of your life.

And you gotta say. You posted a quote on Instagram recently about this. Yes.

I saw it. That's a good quote.

One of the regrets of the dying. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, that quote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really, I use that as a prompt.

Yes.

To get people to think about in your life. But if you do that, so let's say in that dynamic, you become what they want you to be even though it's not who you really are. You get to the end of your life and can you live with doing what was expected but never what was destined? Can you live with doing what was expected but never what was destined. And if the answer to that question is no, then you gotta make some changes.

That's so tough.

It is.

Why does love trap us? Because I'm speaking for myself.

Yeah.

'Cause I don't wanna say the world does this, but I sense that a lot of other people do this. When we feel the sense of chemistry and connection and intimacy and vulnerability and love, Whether it's real or not, we sense that feeling of intimacy with someone. Why does that trap us? And we stay in these things in general, I'm not speaking for everyone, but we tend to stay in these things much longer than we should. Like you'll hear people say, I knew I should have got a divorce seven years ago. It's like they break up with the divorce. I always ask them, when did you know that you weren't supposed to be with this person? five years ago, ten years ago, the day I got married.

Right?

You hear these things and you're like, why do we stay? Right. Why is it so hard for us, this trap of love?

Right.

Why don't we get out of it sooner?

Right. I mean, there's so many, there's so many reasons. The reason that comes to mind is worth, self-worth.

We don't believe we're worth it or we're afraid we won't find something as good or what do you mean?

All of it. What I mean is that It can take a while for you to come into a revelation of what you're worth and that you are worthy to be happy and pursue happiness on your terms and come to the revelation that this dynamic is no longer making that contribution to my life.

Not that they're bad and wrong.

There you go, right, right.

Not that it's all their fault.

There you go.

It just wasn't the right fit.

And for me, when you're in that situation, It can take a long time for you to get to the place where you feel enough worth, where you're ready to say, you know what? I'm going to endure the fear. I'm going to endure the challenges to make that kind of move. So when you talk about love, love cuts to the core of our worth because we all need it. And when I say love, we all need love, I don't mean just romantic love. I'm just saying we all need to love and be loved. I think it's just part of our humanity. It's just part of how we were created. It's part of our divinity, right? God is love. We are, God is in us. We love, right? and so part of that love is, oh man, I want so much of it is focused on giving. Because think about it again, think about how we're socialized, right? Oh, you do the right thing. Oh, mommy daddy loves you. Oh, you know, oh, I want to, but it's not like, you know, do you love you? Do you know you're worthy? Do you know that you are worth it? Do you love who looks back at you in the mirror? Do you love who looks back at you when you take the selfie? Because at the end of the day, love becomes complicated because we never actually get there with our worth and who we really are. And so, we go into the relationship and we haven't really done the work, we kind of feel worthy, we don't quite feel loved, and we bring all of that. That's a recipe for this, you know? And here's the thing, it's okay, right? Love is like a rocky sea, right?

You know what I mean?

You're on, hey, we're on the boat, man, it's going to be rocky. That's okay. because we all have our stuff. So it's not about finding somebody who don't have stuff. You want to find somebody who can help you with your stuff.

Yeah.

Who's willing to help you with your stuff. So that as you bring things that are difficult, they're like, hey, it's cool. Let's work this through. But you both find a healthy way to do it.

Yes.

But one of the reasons why I think people stay in things is because of worth. And you need time to get to a place, and some people never get there where you realize what you're worth. because at the end of the day, I go back to happiness. It's like, and peace and joy. You know, we only live this life once. You know, I'm a Christian. I believe in heaven. I believe in that. But I also believe that this is, this earth, this life, this particular existence, we only get it once. So when you really put that in the broad scheme of things, you think, okay, am I living right now according to my choice?

Yes.

Am I doing the things that bring me joy, bring me peace? Or am I allowing doing things in my life that are working against it, no matter what they are. It could be a relationship, it could be a job, it could be a living environment, whatever it is, I have to take control and do this assessment and then make the decision, okay, from a relationship standpoint, if my relationship isn't everything I wanted, okay, what do I need to do to fix it? But first, I gotta fix me.

Yeah.

And I gotta work on me and I gotta love me. and as I love me, it will then help me learn how to love others and make the assessment. Okay, you know what? Maybe this person is going to be able to walk with me and I walk with them. Great. Maybe not. But let me not just point the finger and do the work. The other thing I want to hit is when you talk about setting expectations, that second part of setting expectations is communication, right? Is it spoken or unspoken? We talked about this earlier. You've got to actually ask the question. So even in this situation, when you talk about difficult relationship, this scenario, instead of making the assumption, whatever your area of frustration is, sit down and frame it as a question. You know what? I was expecting that in this relationship that we would sit down and eat every night at 7 o'clock.

Right, because this is what we did in my family. There you go. So I just assumed.

That's why I just assumed.

You would do the same thing.

Is that your expectation? Is that something I can expect from you? And let them say yes or no. Oh, okay. So for you, you don't ever expect to be home at seven. You're going out to dinner.

You're going out to dinner.

Oh, okay. Got it. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay, great. Wow. Now we're actually having a real adult conversation, right? We're having an adult conversation because we're taking accountability and we're communicating. And so when it comes to setting expectations in any area of life, you got to know is it realistic or unrealistic viS-A-Vis control. And you got to ask is it spoken or unspoken viS-A-Vis communication. And when we start to do these tools, it does free us up. Because the reason why I wanted to write Live Free is because so often we're not. And when I say live free, what I mean is that when you and I live free, when anyone lives free, it means they are not under the mental, physical or emotional control of anyone or anything. That's what living free is. Living free means, so when we get into a situation and we start to feel like, ooh, this person is starting to feel like this person is making me mad or contributing to my discontent, then I would say to that person, okay, pause for a minute. Pause for a second. It's super easy just to turn all your attention to what they're not doing.

Right?

No, no, no, no. How do you want to feel in the situation? What will give you more power in the situation? What will give you more peace? Okay. You know what? I'm identifying that there are some things in my relationship that are incompatible.

Yes.

I am going to spend some time observing what those things are and identifying if there are certain things I can live with and what I can't.

If their entire story The story about the relationship that just ended is about what the other person did wrong to them. Something is missing in the story. That doesn't mean that the other person may not have done things that were hurtful to them. But add to it, who were you in this relationship? What role did you play? What did you see that you didn't want to pay attention to? What things do you wish you had done differently? What pieces do you wish that your partner had seen and accepted from you differently? Where did you wish you would have said less and where did you wish you would have said more? What do you learn from this relationship? And if when you say what you learn, it's just that I want to make sure that the next person is.

Gives me what I need, or is.

Less of this or more of that, Who do you want to be in the next relationship?

How are you going to add value?

A relationship is a story of many people. It's not even a story just of two. Who was too involved in your relationship? Who was not involved enough? So there's a cast of characters in a relationship. And it's all those questions that you want to ask when you are in transition. I think that's it. I mean, you can. But they are both directions. If you find yourself with a spotlight only on the other person and you in a passive, receptive stance, you're missing a whole pan of the story.

Yeah. And you're probably more of the problem than the. Of the relationship than them. If you're just focusing on them, probably.

A relationship is not about this person and that person. The relationship is what happens in between. This is my view on relationships. It's not an essentialist view. This is this personality and that personality. It's the dynamic. You can have a dynamic with a certain partner. You've had dynamics with certain partners. And of course it was just the right fit between the match and the ignition. And so you had enough inside of you to react with a certain kind of, let's put it, your jealousy. But you may meet another person who acts differently, and you may still have a little bit of that jealousy inside of you, but it doesn't get activated because this person is responding very differently to you. And when you say, Where were you? they don't say, why do you always have to ask me that question? They just say, I just went to do this. It's all good, darling. I'm right here. I've got you back. and then you don't go into your chest pain. So this is very important to understand. We are not the same person with different partners. We may have certain things that come out depending on what is being sent over to us. So the relationship is a figure eight. It's what I do that makes you do something, that then makes you react to me a certain way, that then draws that out of me, that draws that out of you, and each one actually creates the other. And when you get that view of relationships, when you come out and you're in transition, you say to yourself, let's say I was with someone who completely disconnected. Okay, they disconnected. Did I push them away? Are there ways in which I contributed sometimes to the disconnection? And that is not self-blame. that is understanding the dynamic. You can take responsibility about things without blaming yourself, and you can hold the other person accountable without blaming them. It's not a blame dance, but it is an understanding of what did I do that made you do what you then did to me, then made me do that. That's the relationship.

And if someone's like, you know what, they listen to you Esther, they really want to have an amazing relationship. They want to have a rich life, knowing it's not going to be perfect, but they want to create beauty and adventure and play and go through life through the sadness and the adversities and all the things that happen in life. And they're thinking to themselves, how much should I pour into myself for my dreams, my health, my friends and family? How much should I pour into the other person, into their life that I'm creating a partnership with? and how much should I pour into the relationship itself? What would you say to that?

But you asked me, it's different questions, right? What keeps a relationship alive is one question. How much do you invest in a relationship is a different question. So I'm going to go to the one about what keeps it alive. It's part of, and I'm suddenly watching the box and thinking, it is what I'm mostly interested in. Because I work on eroticism. What keeps us alive? What keeps us hopeful? What keeps us engaged with possibility?

Not physically alive, but connected alive.

Connected to life. Life force, life energy. Why? Because because I think everybody understands relationships that are not dead versus relationships that are alive. Teams that are not dead, companies versus companies that are alive. What is flourishing versus surviving? And because it is part of my personal history, and I come from a background of survivors, of parents who were in concentration camps, and I wanted to understand how do people stay alive when they spend five years in a concentration camp? So that's why I've got interested in eroticism. Sexuality is a piece of this, but sexuality is not eroticism. You can have sex every day and feel nothing. Eroticism is the poetry that accompanies it. It's the meaning we give to it.

Yes.

Right? It's the story that's attached. So eroticism in a relationship is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk-taking, novelty that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship. So in the research of Eli Finkel, it means doing new things together, taking risks beyond your threshold, out of your comfort zone. Because if you do pleasant things that are familiar, it's cozy, it's friendship, It's love, but it's not exciting. It's not erotic. It's not necessarily desire. It's calibrating your expectations. So that you have, and that means diversifying your intimate connections or your deep connections. For me, intimacy doesn't mean sexual either. It just means people that are important to you, that accompany you through the life stages and through the big events in life. These treatings, expectations, calibrating expectations, diversifying your social connections and taking risks and doing new things is the research of Eli Finkel for thriving relationships. But then in that piece, I think play is essential.

It's huge.

It's huge. And it is actually the quality of emotions that is the least talked about.

How often are you playing in your relationship? All the time.

All the time. We have, humor is essential. It's an essential salve and balm in my relationship. I can be in the middle of an argument and then I start to laugh and then I just get perspective and we just kind of ground ourselves back again. It's flirting, it's teasing, it's making fun of, it's, It's that whole realm of we're not really serious and we don't take ourselves that serious.

And what happens when relationships are taking themselves very serious and they're not playing?

Look, I had a teacher who once said to me, if a couple comes to you for therapy and there is absolutely zero humor left, it is diagnostic.

Really?

Now, is it true? You know, nobody has proven that scientifically. But what you know is that humor and if you listen to my podcast, if you listen to the sessions on Where Should We Begin? or on How Is Work? you'll see in the middle of talking about trauma, painful event, major fight, strife, I laugh with them. I manage to see if they can see themselves, if they have a bit of distance, of perspective, if they understand sometimes the absurdity of the things that we get into, the things over which we fight, the way we do it. And even if it's just a glimmer, a smile on the side, on the corner, I know they know that, I know that we know, and it creates that complicity, and it invites a new possibility.

Some people may be resisting the humor, they may be like, they want to hold on to the seriousness.

Yes, yes. If you want to hold on to righteousness, to I am right, to victimization, to I have the view that is the only view that matters, and only my perception and my experience is the truth, then you are in a polarized system that is rigid and unyielding. Humor and play is possibility. Possibility invites change. Change invites healing.

Yes. I want to ask you a few more questions, then I want us to play your game for a little bit. Over the last two years, was there anything that came up for you personally? in your own inner world that you noticed, oh, there's something like we talked about it, it created a lot of pressure for people if there were things that didn't come out. Was there anything for you that you were like, huh, there's something I still need to work on myself or need to continue the healing journey of that came out in the last couple of years with being at home and, you know, not doing things the way they used to be?

I will answer this in two ways. The way that I experienced the, the pandemic. So in the first In the beginning, right after I left you, I went back to New York and I went in lockdown. And basically it was in the, you know, suddenly kind of, I got gripped with a bit of a panic and primarily because I thought, I can't catch this thing. Because if I catch it, I am now suddenly considered elderly. I'm past 60.

Thought you were 35.

Yeah, yeah. For the pandemic it changed. It suddenly shifted overnight. I became elderly. And that meant I wasn't sure if we entered the hospital, me or Jack, that we will pass the triage.

Interesting.

And he's older than me. And I got really, really scared. I had a lot of post-traumatic stress symptoms that are very much connected to the Holocaust and to my family experience. That sense that overnight, this whole life I have built, could just disappear like this. And it was irrational. I was terrified that Jack would die to the point you wanted to know about your marriage, my relationship. So we have it in the middle of construction at the time, and the workers, and at day point he comes to me and he says, I asked the workers to dig a hole in the garden. I said, oh yeah, why? He said, so that when I die you can just roll me right in.

Oh my God. Wow, talk about humor.

And I, but I cracked up because it, he showed me, girl, you gripped in fear.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I just started to laugh and I just realized, no, no, no, he's not that, because I was ready to stop construction. I said, we're not making this.

No one can come here within a thousand yards of our house.

No, no, it's more like we will not survive. No way. I was, I really, when it's post-traumatic, it's trauma is the worst thing, right? So I really was, very, very, very scared. And his humor diffused it for me and just brought me back and said, we're continuing to build, we're gonna live, we're gonna survive. Don't worry, girl. It's like, so this was one. And it slowly, you know, I entered into the long term of the pandemic and it dissolved. And that's when I understood this came out of that. I missed my friends. I missed my dinner parties, I missed intimacy, and I created a host of different group experiences pods. I had a movie club on Zoom on three continents. I had a book club, I had a yoga group that met four times a week still till now, that is over two continents.

Wow, that's cool.

And I had a hiking group, I had a swimming group in the summer, and then one day I said, I need to play and I need to continue to have conversations where I learned something new. I was so freaking tired of talking about the pandemic.

Sure, sure.

And I said, I'm gonna create a game. Not having any idea of what this thing was going to become and what it represented. I just thought, oh, I want to do something creative and I'm gonna, I want people to be able to talk about something that isn't just like, you know, when you live six months like this, in lockdown, you begin to have the same conversation.

Of course, yeah, of course.

So I just thought, how am I going to make couples Have fun, get energized, you know, be curious about each other, talk about something else. And I thought, we need to play because play is a container. Play gives you the possibility to take risks, to talk about things that you would otherwise not talk about because it's under the guise of play. Play allows you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask, certainly not to your partner, because we get more shy with the people that we live with. than with strangers.

Really? Interesting.

You know, you're more daring to ask sometimes questions to strangers.

You're never gonna see again.

Or people you've just met than the person you live with for decades on end.

That's interesting.

So play became very, very central. When you play, you still are able to lift yourself from the ground, and it means you can enter the world of imagination. and where the rules are different. And every child at this moment, you know, around the Ukrainian crisis, you can see when kids are still able to play, it is the moments when they are not in hypervigilance. It is an essential survival strategy.

Yes, yes.

Underrated. And from that place came... That's correct. Where should we begin?

It's one of the key things in relationship. and in life is what I'm hearing.

It's essential. It's essential.

It's essential. Do you think one, a relationship can truly thrive if one person is developing and working on themselves and processing and learning new skills and the other person is not?

It's very hard, you know, because people, I think growth is very important. I also think that everyone grows at different speeds and they grow differently. So whereas therapy has been very impactful for you, for someone else it might be something different, right? There's many paths.

Of course.

Doing something. Doing something, right? And I think that people grow at different speeds and I do think that you have to love someone as though they would never change. Though the funny thing is it's like we want everyone to sort of grow, to evolve. But we have to agree. It shouldn't be on their terms, right?

That's what I told her. I said, listen, I'm committed to my own growth. I'm going to continue to grow and evolve.

Yes.

But you've got to accept me where I'm at. Yes. And if you don't accept me where I'm at now, and you want me to change right now into something that's going to make you happy, this is.

Not going to work. Or fall in love with potential, which is a trap. I cannot do that. No, you cannot do that. And also, what defines growth? How do you know that you're growing? Because some people will say, they'll go on a retreat or do ayahuasca or do something and be like, oh my God, all of this. And the other person's like, whoa. That doesn't mean that the other person is not growing. So it's like, what really, I think growing as a couple is really important.

That's why I said we've got to do, whether you call it coaching or therapy.

I love that.

Committing to it together.

I love that.

Individual on our own and then together. I love that. And she was like, yeah, I'm down. So she has her own coach that she works with every two weeks for an hour, an hour and a half to work on her own stuff individually. I do that as well individually and then we do it together. I love that.

And from the beginning. From the beginning.

Which has been huge for us.

Oh, I think it should be non-negotiable. That's what I said.

I was like, it's not negotiable for me. Yeah. if it's not something you want, then find someone else and I'll find someone else or whatever. Yeah.

Because guess what? No matter how much work we do on ourselves, we're gonna be triggered and that inner child is gonna come out screaming and we're gonna be like, you know, a total ass sometimes and, you know, we're gonna have to apologize. I mean, being in a relationship means that you have to know how to forgive and forgive often because oftentimes we will make mistakes with the person we love and we We didn't even realize that we were doing that. I mean, how many times have you hurt someone's feelings and that was not your intention?

Yeah, so many.

So many.

Yeah.

So many times. So I love, you know, if more people, because the problem is that most people enter couples therapy when it's too late.

When it's probably not gonna work out.

Yeah, when there's just too many problems and too many things to unpack. I mean, yes, it can work, you know, it can help, but if you can do this stuff preemptively, It's huge. Anything to prevent resentment.

And pain and suffering and frustration..

Anything, you know, to foster honest conversations, you're going to you're going to win, even if you end up breaking up. You're still win, because at least it won't be the kind of break up that destroys you.

Yeah, this That traumatizes you at like asping Yeact Hurtful back and forth.

Yeah, and that's true. You know what? That's trauma.

Oh yeah, huge. And that will hold people back from opening their heart in the next relationship.

I see it all the time. People are walking around so wounded and so closed.

What is the most unpopular thing or truth about relationships that most people don't want to know?

I'll tell you straight up that every relationship you've ever had had one thing in common and that was you. Just like every relationship I've ever had one thing in common, that's me. It's not that all of them cheat, is that you keep choosing cheaters. It's not that all of them are narcissists. It's that you're choosing the narcissists. It's not that all of them are this or that. You're choosing them. You're part of that. And it's such an uncomfortable truth because you know, people don't want to see that in themselves, but it is the path to your freedom 100%. Every relationship we have ever had has been a mirror. And it shows us where sometimes it reflects back to us where we've done a lot of work and it's lovely. Sometimes it reflects back to us how wonderful we are. And oftentimes in our past, if it hasn't worked out, it's going to reflect where our self-worth is, where our immaturity is, where our trauma is, every relationship we've ever had will reflect back to us the relationship we have with ourselves, period, end of story. And if you can't, if one cannot actually accept that, they're just gonna keep repeating patterns, guaranteed.

Yeah.

Guaranteed. If your picker is off, and busted.

Because... Man, mine was off for years.

Yeah, because, you know, whatever, you're addicted to the chaos, or daddy did this, or mommy did this. Which is familiar. Of course it's familiar, and this is very real. I don't mean to say it cavalierly. I mean, it's real. But then you have to recondition yourself to understand what a healthy person is, and go for that, and become healthy yourself. 'Cause most toxic relationships, of course there are abusive relationships where there is actually a very clear victim and a very clear perpetrator. But most of the time what people refer to as toxic, which is just an overused term in the current zeitgeist, but when people refer to toxic, it's two people with consistent, 'cause we get unregulated once in a while, that's called being human, with consistent unregulated emotional states, blaming each other for each other's pain and not taking responsibility.

You did this to me, you made me feel this way, what you did hurt me.

And they're constantly unregulated, that's toxicity. Now, I was in my 20s in a horrendous relationship. Talk about chemistry, 'cause once you have chemistry with someone, you're screwed.

You feel this chemical connection, you're like, This feeling, you're intoxicated.

It's a wrap. And the thing is, if you haven't done work on yourself, you're gonna have that chemical explosion with the one person who's bad for you. And oftentimes the person who's the best in bed is the person who's the worst for you. And usually they're just, you find the sex is amazing with them because there's a danger and then there's also a familiarity. I mean, we can- There's like a trauma bonding, yeah, exactly. So I remember in my 20s, I was in a relationship with someone for about a year who, without question, is toxic. Like, there's just- Right.

You could feel it, you knew it.

Everyone knows it.

They're like, what are you doing with this guy? He's treating you this way.

Everyone knows it. It's just, it's a fact, right?

But why did you stay then?

Exactly. Where's the toxicity in me and the low self-worth and all of that? Because the thing about being in a very unhealthy relationship is two people really bringing out the worst each other.

Not the best, yeah.

Definitely not even close to the best. To the point where that when that relationship ends, part of getting over that relationship is trying to overcome the shame that you feel for like even going there.

Yeah, I was there. How long of a life did I have with this person? The time and the energy and why would I, how could I do this? And what was I thinking? The shame, the guilt, right?

Yeah, and also to some of the things that you did. That's like, how did I react this way? Yeah, like that boundary that I do, or like that thing that I said.

Yeah.

This is interesting. I asked people this sometimes, and I asked my younger self this now. I'm like, if sex was off the table, would I have stayed in certain relationships? There's no way. Zero chance I would have stayed after a year, two years of feeling like I'm abandoning myself. getting screamed at every week or whatever. I've been like, what am I doing this for? Like, why would I stay in this thing?

Yes.

Whatever reason that chemical bonds you for a moment and it's so strong and then you're like, okay, let's have a few good days and then it goes back into chaos. And you're like, yeah, yeah. Let's get back to that feeling, right?

100%.

But if you took that off the table or if you just waited as long as you could.

Absolutely.

I'm not saying you have to wait till marriage, but if you wait until you get to experience someone over and over and over again in lots of scenarios, and you felt safe and peaceful, then maybe, okay, you can start in that sexual interaction. And you can break out. Yeah, of course.

I'm just talking about intercourse, right?

But if you took it off the table and you asked yourself, would I be in this if we didn't have sex for a year? Probably you wouldn't.

Yes. Exactly.

If I'm not gonna have sex for a year with this person, would I put up with this behavior? Yeah, exactly.

Would I be yelled at?

No, exactly. I don't need this.

Yeah, I don't need this, exactly. And people, they don't want to wait. And I always say, build that emotional intimacy first. Well, what if the sex is bad? You know what? You can work on it. And when you're making out with them, you know anyway, you can have some idea if there's a connection. Yeah, if there's, if there's, you know, there's chemistry from a kiss, period. Exactly.

So you don't have to go there. And some, I, I've heard this a lot lately. They're like, If someone is boring, you should run towards them, not away from them. You know what I mean?

If all you know is chaos.

It's chemical chaos, right? It should run to, that's a safer environment. It doesn't mean he's the one or she's the one to be with for you, but start looking at people that make you feel comfortable and safe.

Yes, where you can, I tell people all the time who have that pattern of always just dating emotionally unavailable people or people that have been wrong for them, and usually what that person doesn't have the self-esteem necessary to be in a relationship with someone who is going to respect them and love them. But I tell them, just practice, go towards boring. Exactly. Go towards that person so that you can have an experience of being in the presence of someone who you could potentially date and you can just be totally yourself.

100% yourself.

Yeah.

No errors, no errors. No strategizing to get someone to be more interested. Yeah, you can flirt and do all that fun stuff, but no strategizing to get someone to be more interested in you, just you. And that is, I mean, that's like revolutionary for some people.

What happens when we don't show our 100% authentic selves to someone in the beginning? and we revealed that six, 12 months later. Yeah.

What happens?

They're really shocked. I didn't know you were like that. I had no idea because they've fallen in love with a version that you showed them that isn't even you. And we forget the truth. Vulnerability is the basis of friendships and indeed relationships. When you're vulnerable, you know, people love you for you. When you're sick, when you have a bad day, they will say, Then you know who your friends are. But if you pretend you're okay, I see that a lot with people who run a business, always pretend everything's fine. They never tell anyone they're lonely. And then we realize, like that great DJ who killed himself. Was it Avicii?

Avicii, yeah.

Who never told anyone, I'm falling apart here. Was it not Bon Jovi? Who was it? Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen. There's so many people in the media who I've got to pretend I'm gray. I can't say I'm lonely, I'm sad, I'm lost. They often let you know through their songs. Look at Prince. I mean, that's so sad that he was so lonely. But they feel that if they tell us, we'll see them as weak and needy, when in fact the basis of friendship is if you're vulnerable and I am, I like you because you're showing me who you really are. and I can love your very soul because I know you. But if I'm in love with an illusion, then it can't work because I don't even know who you are.

Wow. How old were you when you started to realize that, that you were lovable?

I think in my 20, a long time, maybe. I remember when I was 18, I had this really lovely boyfriend. We'd always say, you know, I love the way you look. And I was saying to my mom, I haven't got a personality. I really believed I had no personal, I could say, I love your hair, I love your body, but I heard that I didn't have any character whatsoever, and that really bothered me. So I think, you know, it's so weird, because when you change so much, you can hardly recognize the person. I'd looking back, I'd say really my 20s, maybe even later than my mid 20s. It is only working with my clients over and over again, seeing what was wrong with them, I began to realize, oh, that's what's wrong with everyone.

Yeah.

And I began to see all of my clients, they could only ever have one of three things wrong with them.

What's that?

Well, the first one was, I'm not enough. That was the biggie. Every client I saw, whether they were a nursery school teacher or they worked in a store or they were a billionaire CEO or a movie star, they all had same thing. I'm not enough. And so I've got to earn love or buy love or keep being a bigger, better deal to get love. And that's so easy to fix. You just go, you just take the I'm not out. I am enough. I always have been, I always will be. And you have, you see, the lie is every day you tell yourself, I'm not enough. You don't know you're doing it. You get up and go, look at me. I don't look right. I didn't I messed that up. I didn't leave enough time to get here. My kids aren't perfect. That client is annoyed. So every day over and over again, you're telling yourself you're not enough. And you just have to take out the knot and go, I'm enough. If I'm prepared to lie to myself every single day over and over again, why not have a better lie? I'm enough. It doesn't have to be true. When people say, you know, my legs are the size of tree trunks, well, clearly that can't be true. This is killing me. This is making me crazy. This is driving me and saying, none of these things are true. But if you're prepared to lie, at least have a better lie. I have great coping skills. This is a challenge, but I've got it. I can rest at the weekend. I've got this. I've got great, I have great coping skills is a great lie, because if you say enough, it actually becomes true really fast.

Relax, yeah.

Something I say a lot, you're never given anything that you can't cope with. Or if I got a lot on, well, I'll rest at the weekend. I can deal with this. I've got this. This is fine. This is okay. So the first thing wrong with people is always, I'm not enough. And if you feel like that, remember, you weren't born with it. You're in great company. And just let it go, because it's not true. The second thing wrong is this belief that I'm different, so I can't connect. And that's kind of a modern day illness. You know, if you're in a tribe, you would connect because you'd know that you're all interrelated, you look the same. But this belief I'm different, so I can't connect.

Is it I can't connect or people don't understand me?

No, you connect by being the same. You know, we're primitive people, we connect by being the same. So if you're different, it's very hard to connect because you feel different.

Different.

And when you feel different, you can't connect. But then you have to remember the truth. If that's your greatest fear, it's most people's greatest fear. So if you look at E.T. he couldn't. He connected to Elliot, but he couldn't connect. And he had to go home because he had to be with his people.

So why is that such a big fear for people?

Of connecting?

Yeah, I'm different, so I can't connect. Well, isn't. different good in a lot of ways, like being unique and being different.

Unique. Well, the answer is yes and no. When you're a little kid, you go, you go, I like SpongeBob SquarePants. I I like green pasta. I I like Dr. Zeus. And we connect by being. I got a friend and they like what I like. So when we're little, we connect by being the same, and our DNA understands or we are hardwired to find connections. and avoid rejection because that's how you make it as a child. You find connection, whether it's your little kitten clinging onto your leg, your dog wanting you not to leave the house, a baby holding on so tightly to mum, you understand the truth. If I'm connected, I will survive. And if I'm disconnected, I will die. Because, you know, imagine 100 years ago you couldn't produce milk for your baby or 500 years ago. we understood that connection is what made us live and disconnection killed us. Why every culture practiced banishment or isolation or marooning or casting out. So connection makes us survive.

Especially as adults.

Yeah.

Okay, so we need to feel connected.

Yeah. And if you listen to all those songs, I'll die if you leave me. My world is empty without you. I can't live.

With.

I can't breathe without you.

Okay.

And to this day, you know, schools understand that someone trolls you, someone ostracizes you, kids, you know, cut you out of the group. They don't speak to you. So our greatest fear is if I'm different, I can't connect. But if you go back to that, everyone's fear is being different. So if you have that fear, it actually means you're the same, and connection is a choice. You can connect to anyone all over the world, whatever their race, religion, creed is. The problem is that we don't see that. We still disconnect people. You know, we saw that a lot with the Boston bombers. They were so disconnected from society that that turned into hatred. And it's really important at schools to look at these disconnected kids and to bring them back. You know, if you look at the whole jail system in Finland. It's all about reconnect. We don't put them in isolation and then send them back out into the world crazy and full of anger. We reconnect. And so our greatest fear as humans is to be disconnected.

So how do we reconnect if we feel like our friend group has pushed us away, our family has sent us away, and how do we feel connected?

Well, sometimes you've got to find a new group. I mean, you know, your family are just what what I call your original family. You can have an, you know, first of all, you have your nuclear family, mom, dad, brother, sister, auntie, uncle, grandma. But then when you get married, they become your extended family. And so you can always create a family. So don't go back to the old tribe that hurt you and expect them to get better. I think a lot of our problems is I expect my mom suddenly to become wonderful. She was always mean and hostile. star, but I expect her to be kind and lovely. She's got old now. Aren't old ladies sweet? No, sometimes they're still cranky. A bitter cranky person doesn't become sweet when they're 80. And often the belief is I gotta go back to my family and make them love me when there's a whole world out there to love you.

Right.

And if people hurt you, not always intending to, and you keep going back to them except they can't always make it better. It's like, you know, If your family had that capacity to love you a cup, but my capacity is Olympic swimming pool, I can't expect that to fill me up. I can fill them up, they can't fill up me. If my parents have a shot glass capacity to give me love, and I've got the ocean capacity, how can a shot glass fill up the ocean? Stop going back to people that hurt you and find there are people all over the world that will love you and fill you up, but we keep going back to the hurt is expecting them to make it better. They're often so hurt they can't. And they often do things like, well, you know, people like us, we don't have that. And look at those people, we're not like that. So it's, I feel different. You know, if your dad was the town drunk, if you didn't have a dad and everyone else did, if you had money and everyone else didn't, or vice versa, We buy in very early to this, I'm different. I'm different and you're not different, you're the same. So you have to stop looking for what makes you different because that's the confirmation bias. Whatever you look for, you're going to find it. I mean, I was a principal's daughter. I felt different the day I went to school and my whole childhood, because my dad was the headmaster. And that was actually horrible, I realized now that was not a good thing. but I was always looking for what made me different. And then it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I kept looking for it. Plus, you know, I could hypnotize people, and that made me feel even more different. And I had this kind of ability to work out what was wrong with someone really quickly. And that's both good and bad. It's actually good. But whatever you look for, you will find whatever you are moving towards, you'll get more of. if you look for why your head is killing you or say, I'm a bit dehydrated, I'm going to drink some water, rub some lavender on my head, I'll be fine in 20 minutes. You've got to decide where you're going. And if you look for what makes you different, you will find it over and over again. But if you say, well, why don't I look for what makes me the same? We're all the same somewhere, then you'll find that too. And it can be very hard if you're dealing with someone who's violent or aggressive or acting out. But if you can look for what makes you the same and not different, it really changes your life. Because then you can't be disconnected. And you can go all over the world. You can hang out with tribes. My friend was in Rwanda with the gorillas and actually if you think you're like them, I did this thing of walking with wolves and the first thing you must do is you have to crouch down, you mustn't bare your teeth, you can't wear wool. And the wolf comes up and decides that you're a wolf. And then you go for a walk and it keeps rounding you back up. If you walk away, it takes you back into the wolf pack because it thinks you're one of them. And if you can make a wolf think you're one of them or a gorilla, then of course you can do it with people. But you have to start from, I'm like you, you're like me. I'm the same as you and I can connect with you somewhere somehow.

Yeah.

Stop looking for what makes you different and look for what makes you the same because it really is life-changing I.

Hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to Greatness Plus Channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcast as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter, and now it's time Time to go out there and do something great.