LOVE EXPERT Explains Why Is So Hard To FIND A PARTNER.. | Lori Gottlieb & Lewis Howes

There's this myth in our culture that you should forgive people and you will feel better, right? No. If you actually don't forgive them, that's called forced forgiveness. I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really? Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm super excited. We've got the therapist in the house, Lori Gottlieb. Thank you so much for being here. I'm very excited. I love having therapists on here because I feel like my whole life is about healing trauma and letting go of stories that I've written that I need to rewrite, which is something you talk about all the time. And I want to start with a question that I think I'm curious about, which is what is the question you get the most as a therapist?

The question I get the most as a therapist is how can I be in less pain? People don't ask it like that, but I think that's what people are doing when they first come in. You know, basically when people come in, they want something to change. That's why they made the appointment. but usually what they want to change is someone else or something else. I want partners to change. Yes, yes. How do you get that person to change? And I think what they come to realize is that they're going to have to make changes.

Okay, so people come in because they're in pain. And they want the pain to go away. And maybe they've tried something else that didn't work. And you're like, talk medicine, right? Without having to take a pill, how can I relieve this pain, this suffering, this problem? But the problem, what I'm hearing you say, is never about another person. It's always with them.

Well, not always. I think that relationally a lot of people don't realize that even if the other person is problematic. So, right, when I was training, one of my clinical supervisors once said, before diagnosing someone with depression, make sure they aren't surrounded by assholes. Right. Right? So, you know, it's not like there aren't problematic people out there. Their environment. Right, but then what is your response to that? And I think that people don't realize how much agency they have. They don't realize that they can choose their response to their circumstances. They can choose their response to the people around them. And I'm not saying that there aren't incredibly daunting circumstances right now in the world, for example. But then how do you respond? What are you going to do about it? And I think that's where people get stuck.

And you talk, I love your TED Talk because you talk about rewriting your story from the past. And I believe that we hold onto our stories and we probably continue to write them in a more powerful way that keeps us trapped or traumatized. Is that fair to say that something happens in our past, we hold on to the story daily or whenever we're triggered and it amplifies the story in our minds?

Well, it does. And the problem is that often whatever that version of the story is, we carry with us and we never revise it. And so you create a story when you're younger, for example, about something that happened in your life. And then as an adult, you've never looked at that story through the adult lens. You're still looking at it through the childhood lens. And so that's why I say that when people come in that we're all unreliable narrators.

Yes.

That we all tell a story through, you know, this lens. And the thing is these are usually faulty narratives. So there's a broader version of the story that people haven't looked at. And so I feel like in a lot of ways what I do as a therapist is I act as an editor and I have, of course, a writing background. And so I help people to revise their stories, 'cause the reason they can't move forward in the story, the reason they can't get to the next chapter, is because of something is wrong with the story. They are stuck. And so it's almost like I'm helping them with writer's block.

I mean, for me, life is an interpretation.

Yes. Right?

There's an instance that happens and we can interpret it as good or bad, or we can interpret it as this is a neutral event and I'm gonna make the most of this. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, absolutely. And also how we attribute other people's parts of the story, right? So who are the villains and the heroes in the story? You know, I talk in the book about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. And idiot compassion is what our friends do. They back up our story no matter what. We say, this happened. This happened with my boss. This happened with my partner. This happened with my parent, right? This happened with my best friend. And we say, yeah, that was terrible. Screw them, they're a jerk. You know, that's awful. You're right, they're wrong. Don't let anyone treat you that way. That's what we do. And if you listen to your friend's stories, you start to realize over time that even though the situation and the names might be different, the kind of story they're telling is similar. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. Yeah, exactly.

We don't say that. That's idiot compassion. Idiot compassion is where We as friends say, yeah, you're the best person in the world. This person's horrible. Leave them or let them go. Forget about them. They're so bad at what they did. There's always two sides to every story.

Well, right. And so the value of therapy is that we offer wise compassion. We hold up a mirror to you and help you to see yourself in a way that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And that's where the other version of the story comes in.

So how do we have wise compassion for our friends when they're like, She cheated on me, he left me, they had an affair, whatever. How do we change our story and also show compassion that we're there for our friend, not making, when they're in a vulnerable place, not making the other person right or wrong, but being there for them and also kind of giving them some tough love, I guess?

I wouldn't call it tough love, I would just call it- Reality. Love.

Love.

It's love, it's much more loving to be truthful in a compassionate way. So I sometimes call them compassionate truth bombs because we need to hear them. But how do we do it? It has to do with timing and dosage. So the timing is when they're really raw, when something just happened. Now's not the time to say, this has happened with your last three boyfriends.

Maybe you're the problem here.

Have you noticed that going through people's phones is not working well for you? We are not gonna say that maybe in that moment. So that's timing. And then the dosage is how much are you going to say in a particular moment and in a particular conversation? It doesn't all have to happen in one conversation. So I think that that has to do with being a good listener. And a lot of us don't know how to listen. And I think it's really helpful. I see a lot of couples in my practice too. And if you can say to the person when they come to you with something, how can I be helpful in this conversation right now? I know you're really hurting. Do you want to just vent? Do you want a hug? Do you want me to help problem solve with you? Do you want my honest opinion or do you want me to hold off and we can have that conversation another time? Let them tell you what they want so you can give them something that is helpful to them in that moment and then in another conversation, you might be able to offer them something more.

When they're not completely raw or broken.

Yes.

Hurt.

Yes.

So what is that specific question when anyone's coming to you with a challenge or a complaint or a hurt What's the question you should ask them?

How can I be helpful to you right now? I know you're really hurting.

What does that do for the person who's hurting when they hear that?

It helps them to reflect on, oh wait, what do I need? Right? Am I just gonna download all of this stuff and then I'm not gonna feel any different at the end? Or is there something else that I want right now? And maybe downloading it will make them feel different. Just make them feel seen and understood and heard. which is important, or maybe they want something else, but let them tell you. And I think the other thing is these three words that are really helpful when they're talking to you are tell me more. So instead of saying, you know, when they say like, oh, here's what's going on, and we say, oh, well, we try to cheer them up. Like, you know, here's what you can do. We try to fix it. We try to cheer them up. We try to make it seem like it's not so bad, whatever we do. Instead, just say, tell me more. We do this with our kids. I can say as a parent, We do this all the time, right? So your kid comes to you and says, I'm really sad about this. I'm really worried about this. We say, oh, don't worry. No, it's not a problem. We say, oh, don't be sad. Go have ice cream. Let's go for a run. Right, exactly. But the thing is that then you get the message as a kid that, oh wait, I'm not supposed to feel this. And really what it is is we get uncomfortable as parents with our kids' feelings.

Why is that?

Because we can't, we are uncomfortable with feelings. We grew up in a way where feelings were messy, feelings were uncomfortable, feelings were something that, you know, they were gonna be trouble. Yeah. As opposed to feelings.

Stop crying, stop crying.

Yes, as opposed to just, you know, let's, feelings are actually a great thing. People say, oh, there are these negative feelings like sadness, anxiety, anger, whatever, even envy. I always say feelings are like a compass. They tell us what direction to go in. So with envy, for example, I say, Follow your envy. It tells you what you want. If you are feeling envy, that's great because it says, what do I desire? It puts you in touch with your desire. What is it that I desire? And what steps can I take to get something like that in my own life? If you're feeling sad, if you're feeling anxious, what is not working right now that you can look at if you stuff down that feeling, if you pretend it's not there, it just gets bigger. And here's what happens. It doesn't go away. It comes out in Too much food, alcohol, drugs, insomnia, a short-temperedness, inability to function, distractibility, that mindless scrolling we all do through the internet. A colleague of mine said that the internet was like the most effective short-term non-prescription pain killer out there.

Wow.

And so what happens is your feelings are still there, but you're not dealing with that.

What happens when we never deal with our emotions or feelings?

Well, you first of all get sick. Physically sick, emotionally sick, mentally sick. Everything, everything, right? So we have, just like we have a physical immune system, we have a psychological immune system. And we have to take care of our psychological immune system. So it's just like, you know, what do you do to keep healthy with your body? Like you're going to eat right, you're going to exercise, you know, you're going to do all the things that you want to do to take care of yourself. enough sleep, those things also help your psychological immune system. They're not totally separate. The mind-body connection is profound. But at the same time, are you going to be around people who don't nourish you? That's going to hurt your psychological immune system. That's going to make you sick. Are you going to stuff down your feelings? That's going to make you sick. And so how do we take care of ourselves? And part of it is instead of trying to numb out your feelings because numbness Numbness isn't the absence of feelings. Numbness is a state of being overwhelmed by too many feelings.

Wow.

And then not only do you not experience the feelings that you don't want to experience, but you don't experience the other feelings. You mute one feeling, you mute the others. You mute the pain, you mute the joy. So you're living in this state where you don't actually get to feel the range of feelings that make us human.

What is that state called?

I was gonna say dead. I mean, I feel like you can be alive, but not living. And that's what happens to people is that they're alive, they're going through the motions, they wake up every day, but they're not really living their lives.

What's an assessment we could take for ourselves, if someone's listening or watching, to ask themselves how alive or how dead they are, and if the people in their life closest are actually good for them or are hurting their psychological states.

Right.

Is there a questionnaire we could take just off the cuff? Is there an assessment? Is there a few things we could ask ourselves?

Yeah. I think that it has to do with a sense of vitality, right? Which, of course, like vitality, the word life is right in there. When you wake up in the morning, are you excited about what you're doing? Is there meaning in what you're doing? Do you feel connected to how you're spending your days? Because at the end of your life, are you going to look back and say, what did I do that was meaningful? And maybe you should talk to someone. In my book, there's a woman that I treat. She's this young woman who goes on her honeymoon, she's newly married, she comes back, and she has cancer. And she says to me at one point, she says, why do we need a terminal diagnosis?

To have a wake-up call.

Why do we need a terminal diagnosis to live our lives with intention? Why do we need that to really pay attention? And I think that if we can keep the awareness of death sitting on one shoulder, and I don't mean in a morbid way or in a creepy way, it's not depressing. It's actually, again, going back to vitality, it helps us feel alive because Life has 100% mortality rate, and that's not for other people. We like to believe that. And so the thing is that if we know that we have a limited time here, I think we would pay more attention to what we're actually doing every day.

Why is it so hard for people to pay attention?

Fear.

But they feel like they're stuck sometimes for years. It's like I stay stuck in a relationship that I know is not right for me for years. I stay in a depressed state for years. I stay in a job that I hate for years. It's all based on fear?

Well, I think it is fear. You know, I think it's fear of uncertainty. This is going to sound strange, but change is really hard because we cling to something that's familiar to us. So even though we may know, oh, this would help me. This would be a good change for me. We don't do it.