How To Manifest Healthy Relationships In Your Life [SOLO ROUND] EP 1401

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Healing unhealthy relationship patterns can feel extremely scary because no one wants to look themselves in the mirror. No one wants to address, okay, they are in this relationship, they attracted it, they allowed people to do certain things. But pursuing beauty and greatness in your.

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Hey guys, Lewis Howes here. And today I'm very excited about this episode. because we are going to discuss how to let go, move on, and heal from a toxic relationship. And I'm so excited because I just feel like a lot of people struggle with this. I will raise both of my hands because I struggled with this in the past too many times to count. The right relationship can help lift us up and become the person we've always dreamed of becoming, really becoming our most authentic self. But on the other hand, the wrong relationship has the potential to leave us with crippling self-doubt and painful wounds that we have to deal with for potentially years to come. And again, I'm going to speak from my own experience on this episode. But first off, if you're leaving a toxic relationship, you're probably feeling a lot of different emotions right now. But I want to take a moment and really acknowledge you for having the courage to make the jump because it can be extremely scary. And I know so many people who have stayed in the wrong relationship for far too long, myself included. Just nod to yourself or leave a comment below if you stayed more than six months, a year, two years longer than you probably should have in a relationship. Let me know in the comment below. And that's why I wanted to really take the time to give you the tools today that you need to move on to the next chapter of your life with more confidence. And by these tools, meaning the tools that I learned from personal experience, but also from all the different experts that we've interviewed, here on the School of Greatness who are teaching relationship strategies, who are diving into the research, who are working with couples on a daily basis and sharing the lessons we've learned from them in a nice little package here for you in this video. And by the end of this episode, you will know the five signs of a toxic relationships, how to take inventory of your own relationship patterns and then break them in a healthy way, and also some self-coaching tools to help you take consistent courageous action in your relationships and in your love life. I'm excited about this. This is stuff that I love learning about and diving in and stuff I continue to learn about for myself by having these different experts on. So make sure to get out a pen and the paper. If you're listening or if you're watching, take notes and let's go ahead and jump right in. And also at any moment, if you're enjoying this or getting some aha moment, Feel free to leave a comment in the video on YouTube or send me a message over on Instagram as well @LewisHowes about your thoughts on this topic. So first off, what is a toxic relationship? Let's define it. The definition of a toxic relationship is that these toxic relationships are those where only one party seeks control over the other to achieve selfish goals and uses the other party for their own benefit. So again, it's about one getting control over the other for their own benefit. That's the definition that we're using here. So what are the five signs of a toxic relationship? Number one, and again, leave a comment if you've ever experienced this. Consistent lying and foundational mistrust. So what does this mean? When to move on, if the other person can't or won't commit to honesty, it might be time to end the relationship. that's when you should think about moving on. If the person won't commit to honesty or can't do it, it might be time to end the relationship. Number two, gaslighting in relationships. We've had some different experts come in and talk about gaslighting, talk about the different strategies that narcissists use in relationships, but this is again to consider to move on if the other person isn't willing to change their ways or give up power over the relationship. And here's the challenge. I actually think when you get into a relationship, you want to know the full range of emotions, behaviors, actions, and beliefs about the person that you're deciding to commit to. You don't necessarily want to change them when you're getting into the relationship. People are gonna be resistant to change. You want to accept who they are, but if for whatever reason they've lied to you or they've manipulated you and they've said things out of integrity and then later it's coming out, and they're not willing to change their lives, that's probably when it's a little more toxic. So I'm a big believer of getting to know the full person first, accepting who they are, both being on a journey of growth and contribution to each other and the relationship. But if people are lying and manipulating, that's something to consider when thinking about moving on in this space. That's the second one. The third thing is jealousy and possessiveness. Now, I will be one to admit, In my teens and my 20s, I was more of a jealous person. I was more possessive in a way if you can say, I didn't feel safe or secure with myself. And so I would get jealous and be worried about my girlfriends going out alone or going and hanging out with guys or whatever it might be. It was more of an insecurity from me. Now, I wasn't extreme possessive and like, you can't do this and give me your phone and calling them 20 times an hour or something like that. But I definitely had some jealousy in me. and that was meaning that I needed to work on that inside of me. But here's the thing when to move on. If you feel unsafe or the other person refuses to acknowledge the problem, then it's time to seek some help from a professional and potentially leave the relationship. It's someone who is extreme jealousy, extreme possessiveness. Listen, I get it. We all might have some jealousy or some need of like insecurity in a relationship, but that's typically our own stuff we got to work on. unless someone is really trying to do something nasty or lie behind our back, that's different. But I think we can always be working on that within ourselves. But if this is extreme cases, then make sure to seek some professional help and support on how to navigate, communicate effectively, and again, if you don't see the change and it's not working for you authentically, it's probably time to move on. Number four, when there's no self-care allowed. So it's time to move on if you consistently don't take care of yourself. because you feel like the other person is more important or they're saying they're more important than you or they're trying to manipulate you and try to get all of your time to help them and they don't want you to support yourself with your own mental, emotional or physical health. Then it might be time to speak with a mental health professional or relational therapist to figure out how to resolve this challenge or to move on. And number five, you want to save them. When to move on. Loving someone who's struggling isn't a bad thing. You know, we want to lift people up. We want to help people. We want to support our partners, all these things. And we're going to go through different stages of life that one person might be struggling at a certain time than the other person. This isn't a bad thing, but it can become toxic if you make yourself responsible for their transformation, if you take full ownership that you need to save and rescue them. ultimately, it's out of your control whether someone will or will not change. And it's not worth staying in a toxic situation, holding on to the hope that you will, quote unquote, save them. Again, we want to be there for a partner. We want to lift them up. We want to empower people. We want to be a stand for the masterpiece that is in front of us in partnership, in union, sickness and health. It's not about not being a stand for someone. It's about if you go into this with I need to save them, all they're trying to do is save you. There might be some unhealthy codependency, some unhealthy trauma bonding from that space and need that is coming from you or the other person. So I want you to take inventory of where you are. You've heard the five signs of a toxic relationship, but what do they mean to you? Again, feel free to leave a comment below of what they mean to you if one of them stood out to you. if something you did helped you overcome one of these things or if you've noticed these things in any relationships before. Let's take inventory of your relationships and love life by asking a couple courageous questions. And I really think it's important to ask courageous questions of yourself and others frequently. Take time to ask yourself these three questions. Number one, which of the five signs of toxic relationships show up in your love life? Again, reflect on this, journal on this, leave a comment below. Number two, what would you do if you had to change this pattern in the next 30 days? So just reflect, what would you do if I had to do this? Would I meet with a coach? Would I address something personally? Would I go through a journey of healing? Would I confront my partner in a conscious, loving way and talk about these things? And number three, what is stopping you from changing this pattern? Again, this is for you to reflect on, this is for you to think about. maybe you just haven't been aware of these patterns and it was a pattern and behavior that was unconscious to you until now. And you were just living based on a model of what you experienced from your parents or what you saw your siblings do or whatever. It just became a familiarity of a behavior. There's no right or wrong, good or bad here. There's no shame or judgment. But you have to ask yourself, is this effective? Is this useful? Is this helping me expand myself or is it making me shrink myself? And for me, I had to take inventory over a previous relationship. After multiple relationships kept ending in suffering and pain and sadness, I had to take inventory on how I was showing up, how I wasn't being as conscious and as healthy in certain areas that I could be. and also how I was attracting unhealthy relationship behaviors and patterns in other people. I'm not here to blame or make wrong of people I've dated, but what I am here to recognize is that I was the common denominator of all the different unhealthy relationships I was in. Maybe I was trying to save or rescue people. Maybe I was trying to feel needed or wanted by attracting certain people that weren't coming from a healthy environment. So I had to, in a previous relationship, actually really look in the mirror and say, Man, why am I repeating this pattern? Why have I dated multiple people in long-term committed relationships where I feel like it ends up not being the healthiest way of aligning to a vision and relationship? What is that within side of me? Where do I feel like I need to improve? How can I become better? what do I need to heal in order to stop attracting this and thinking that someone who is potentially wounded is a healthy relationship for me and really get courageous with asking myself questions. So it's one of the things that I did. And for me, what worked was going on a healing journey, finding a therapist, finding a coach to guide me in processing the traumas inside me so that I could create a healthier identity of myself in intimacy moving forward. and that's what really has supported me. And I just think it's a journey, right? It's a journey and it's not an overnight thing. Healing unhealthy relationship patterns can feel extremely scary because no one wants to look themselves in the mirror. No one wants to address, okay, they are in this relationship, they attracted it, they allowed people to do certain things, they allowed unhealthy behaviors to happen, they gave in, they abandoned themselves, they didn't stand up, for what they wanted. It's not fun. It feels a little bit scary when you start to face and address these things. But pursuing beauty and greatness in your relationships is always worth it. Pursuing the ability to feel deeply and open your heart and feel a sense of authentic, conscious love is an incredible feeling that I want every one of you to experience. And I feel like it really hasn't been until the last couple of years when I've truly been able to feel it consistently. from a conscious way. So I want you guys to be able to get there as well. And again, this is not like I've figured it out and I'm perfect or something, but I feel like I've been able to experience it a lot more frequently because I've been just doing so much work over the years by interviewing these experts, by diving in with coaching, by allowing myself to grieve and heal and transform from the inside out. So a quote and idea from my book, the Greatness Mindset, which is really all about unlocking the power of your mind and about healing from the inside out so you can see the world differently and see relationships differently inside of you and in front of you and make better decisions with the relationships in your life. A quote from the book says, It will mean giving it your all, taking courageous action, but then letting go of the results, which is a hard one for a lot of people. The results may not be what you expect them to be, but they may be better. or they may just be different and that's okay. That's on page 12 of the Greatness Mindset. If you want to learn more about that, make sure to grab a copy. Again, this will give you a lot of different tools from the experts we've interviewed over the last decade to support you in the healing journey, having a better relationship with yourself and also therefore having better relationships in intimacy, love and romance. what does taking courageous action look like to heal your relationship pattern? Because for me, I believe it's about healing a pattern. It's creating a new meaning around a pattern that you've been showing up as. And to answer that, I want to share more about setting healthy boundaries and what I call the granting yourself permission exercise. So boundaries are huge. And a lot of people and experts are coming out talking about boundaries. There's tons of books, best-selling books about boundaries. because most of the time we've been conditioned to give and sacrifice and over sacrifice to everyone around us without taking care of ourselves. And I'm all about being of service and helping your friends and community and your family, but making sure you also create a good relationship and boundaries with you so you have an abundance of energy that you can help others as well. And healthy boundaries are the foundation of healthy relationships. And in my mind, having that inner peace and a harmonic relationship with yourself internally, which is huge. That environment of harmony, of resonance, of congruency with self allows you to create better healthy relationships with others. And we can't just create them, we need to communicate them. You can't just expect someone to know your boundaries and you can't yell at someone and say, don't do this, I don't like when you do that. These things are unconscious ways of communication. We yell, we react when we have a wound, when we're triggered, when someone hits a button inside of us that we don't like to feel something. So we get to take responsibility for our communication, for our language, for our tone, for our energy, and for our intention when we're connecting with our partners. We need to make sure the people in our lives are clear about our boundaries and express ourselves the moment that they are crossed. I can speak from personal experience that it was very, very hard for me to communicate boundaries because I didn't want to upset people. I didn't want people to be mad at me. I didn't want people to be frustrated with me or to get hurt. And so I would keep myself quiet and just continue the process. Then I would resent the people who were crossing my boundaries when I didn't communicate my boundaries because I lacked the courage emotionally. So again, I had to face myself. I had to address these things within me that were causing me to feel insecure about having these conscious conversations. It takes courage to talk to people that you care about and say, Hey, I know you've been doing this for the last five years, three years, ten years, and I know I haven't said anything about it. So this is not a blame or a make wrong and I'm not mad at you. I just want to take responsibility for myself and realize that this doesn't work for me anymore. I want to make sure I don't abandon myself in this area anymore. My request is that we don't do things this way anymore. My request is that when I need alone time, you don't interrupt me or whatever it is the boundary you need for yourself. Just doing it from a calm, loving, conscious way. Again, when you attack someone to try to create a boundary, it's going to make them a little off for a second, make them feel a little what's going on? Resistant. Just try to do it from a conscious way. I know it takes courage. the more you practice it, the easier it will get. And again, this is a, I want to close from this part from the grant yourself permission exercise. This is from again, the greatness mindset. So this is an exercise called grant yourself permission. There are two pages in here that I want to cover page 224 and 225 in the greatness mindset that allow you to create this process for yourself. And again, step one, you want to figure out what your goal is. What your goal is with this relationship, what your goal is with communicating this process, what your goal is in creating this boundary or whatever it is that you want to create for yourself. So either write down the goal or define the goal with the person you're talking to. Step two is to identify the criticisms. And when you think about chasing after the goal that you named in step one, What doubts come up? Think about the doubts that might come up in having this conversation or the goal around this boundary. Okay? Using outline below, write the self-criticism preventing you from working towards that goal. So again, if you go to the page right here, you can see it and you can write it down for yourself in the book, but I'll just give you the prompt right here. Write the self-criticism preventing you from working towards your goal. Number one, I am not blank enough. Number two, I am too blank. And it is too irresponsible or selfish to go after this goal because blank. And fill in the blank there. So again, I am not what enough. I am too blank. And it is too irresponsible or selfish to go after this goal because blank. Now also, to continue this, in my past, I experienced What trauma? So write down what trauma. So maybe in my past when I tried to create a boundary with this person, I experienced and then define and write in what you experienced with that response. That traumatic feeling, the stress, the overwhelm, the resistance. Whatever it was, write that down. And that makes me afraid that what?

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When I communicate this, I'll get the same response. That'll get shut down, that I won't, I'll be met with resistance. Write that down. And I should not feel what? So again, this is all in these pages right here, page 224-225 of the book. And there's also another step to this process which is crafting a permission statement which is giving yourself permission to take this action. So again, I want you to grant yourself permission first and follow these prompts. Again, it's page 224-225 of the Greatness Mindset. If you get yourself a copy, there's tons of tools in here and also in my opinion on page 201, it's one of my favorite graphics. and really explaining points about what it means to be in a powerless mindset versus a greatness mindset. And when we think about toxic relationships or unhealthy, unconscious relationship choices that we make or that we are in, a lot of times we feel powerless in a relationship when it is toxic. Again, if you talk about those top five things that we addressed previously, we feel powerless when we don't feel like we're able to take care of ourselves. We feel powerless when someone is possessive and jealous and controlling of our time and energy and all the things we do and who we hang out with. We feel more powerless. All these different things we talk about in the book on how to overcome the powerless mindset and then transform into the greatness mindset. It's a set of tools, strategies, and beliefs that you can shift into that greatest mindset so you can have just a healthier, more conscious, loving relationship with your partner. And again, that's what I want you guys to have. Got it all inside the book, the Greatness Mindset. Now, I know this can be a pretty deep and heavy topic to discuss and go over and talk about, but I hope the strategies that we went over, kind of just defining what these five keys are, giving you some tools to help get you started will support you and bring you a sense of peace and healing as you set out in this next chapter of your life. Again, whether you're in a season of singleness and you're not in a relationship, whether you're in a relationship that might feel like other some of these things, not all of them, but some of them don't feel as healthy and conscious and there's some toxicity in there, maybe it's coming from you, maybe it's coming from your partner, or maybe you're both caught up in this toxic behavior. this is not a blame and a make wrong, but this is about looking yourself in the mirror and having the courageous conversations with self and with your partner to address how to get out of these things and just create more harmony in the relationship. It can be stressful, it can be challenging, it can be confrontational. But I want to remind you before you jump into a relationship with another person, again, if you're in a single season, be sure to attend to the relationship with yourself first. Make sure you're giving to you your self-care, your love, your health, your physical, mental, spiritual health. Give yourself the attention you would want from a romantic partner. Give it to yourself first. That way when someone gives it to you, it just brings more joy and happiness, but it doesn't make you happy alone with it. You want to make sure you're in control of your happiness, that you are doing things to bring you joy, and then when you meet someone in a relationship, they should add to your joy, add to your happiness. My girlfriend Martha says to me, it might sound harsh at sometimes because it's not romantic sounding. She goes, Louis, you don't make me happy, but you make me happier. She's already a happy person before she met me. She's happy with me, whether I do things or not for her, but she is happier getting to experience love with with me, with a partner, and I want you to feel happy with where you're at and happier with the person you're with as well because you're experiencing life, you're experiencing love, you're experiencing these magical moments and feelings and adventures together. You're creating a beautiful bond together. That's what I want you to take away from this. I wish I was able to receive some of this information 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Heck, five years ago, three years ago, because I lacked the courage to address that I made poor decisions by choosing relationships that were unhealthy. We never want to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, oh, I made a wrong decision. I made a poor decision. Or, I didn't make the best conscious decision. We never want to face those things within ourself. And so it's hard to hear certain things if you don't want to point the finger back to you and say, oh, man. Well, I'm really the one to be responsible here. I'm the one to blame. I'm the one who's got to take full ownership of my decisions because I choose this and I did things out of sexual chemistry or attraction and not out of spiritual alignment. And so you just want to make sure you figure out where you are currently in your life and really connect with someone out of that spiritual alignment, that spiritual connection over a trauma bonding experience, over a just sexual connection alone without making sure you're in alignment with all the other values, vision and lifestyle that you have for yourself as well. So again, wherever you are, whoever you are, thank you so much for listening, for watching, for being here. I appreciate you and I just want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. Make sure to pick up a copy of the Greatness Mindset. Leave a comment below if this was a powerful episode for you and if you want more lessons on relationships, on overcoming unhealthy, toxic challenges in relationships. If you want us to do more research and have on more guests where I talk about some of these things that I've learned as well, leave a comment below. Share this with a friend. Make sure to get a copy of the book. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you next time. I hope today's episode inspired you on.

Your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.