The 5 REASONS Why Your Relationship WON'T LAST | Lewis Howes
Lewis Howes discusses five reasons relationships fail, covering communication, emotional maturity, intimacy, and personal growth. He shares his own experiences navigating love and self-awareness, with input from Steve Harvey and Faith Jenkins on what breaks couples apart.
Chapters
We tend to all want the same thing, but we don't have the tools to communicate. So it sounds like we're pulling in different directions and sometimes people can't self-diagnose what's going on with them. But if you create a safe space together, I should be asking, is this relationship worth it? Instead of, is this relationship perfect? And I was asking myself, because I've seen Instagram relationships so long, I've never had one, and I've seen movies and everything else. I thought any sort of issue within a relationship was fatal. And I'll be honest with you what the issue was, we had a problem in bed. And I've never encountered that before and I think it's emasculating for a guy when your partner might not have the same interest in sex as you do. And I think I was emasculated by it. I think I didn't understand it. And she probably because I wasn't creating a safe space, she did not want to talk about it. Right, and for me that felt at the time like a dead end. Like you've hit, like going through a maze and you hit a cul-de-sac as we call it, like a dead end. What would a safe space have looked.
Like for you to create?
Just honestly to ask some very thoughtful, unloaded questions and to listen. You weren't willing to do that, you.
Just didn't have the tools or the awareness.
I did not have the tools. I did not have the tools. I didn't know how to communicate and communication is foundational to everything. It turns out most of the time as I've seen in my life whether it was when I dropped out of university, my mum didn't speak to me for three years, whether it's my business partner becoming an alcoholic and only finding out when he was downstairs lying on the floor as a drunk, or whether it's in that situation that we tend to all want the same thing, but we don't have the tools to communicate. So it sounds like we're pulling in different directions. And I think in that situation, again, it was one of the moments in my life where I learned the importance of mature communication. and creating a safe space and understanding that what someone self-prescribes as their issue is not necessarily their issue. And sometimes people don't know what their challenge is. So someone might say to you, I don't like sex. And for you that again, it feels really binary. It's like, well, you either like it or you don't, and you're not willing to talk about it, so it's over. But things, as I learned in this case, are often much more deep and complex. and sometimes people can't self-diagnose what's going on with them. But if you create a safe space together, you can go on the journey to understand what that actually means. I wasn't willing to, so broke up with her.
Wow.
I'm back with her now.
Well, it's the same relationship. Same relationship. It's her.
Yeah. I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Interesting. I'll be. I 100 marry her. Wow.
And she'll 100 be my wife because it's. Yeah, I mean, I've never met a person like her, but.
Wow. So this is that, that relationship then.
And you ended it. How long did you enter for?
A year.
Come on.
Yeah, I ended up for a year.
Were you in touch at all? Was little conversation?
Not really. So she, the pandemic happened and she had some troubles in her life that she wanted to go and figure out. So she flew to Indonesia, she flew to Bali. And the longer time went on and the more time I had on my own, and I'll be honest with you, the more time I had to try all the wrong things and have them fail me.
Right. You were like, okay.
Yeah, I was like, oh, that was the one.
Oh, wow.
That was the one. And I became sure and sure as the days went on that I would never find a love like that. I would never. And I was sure of it. I was utterly convinced I had made a mistake and that I was the problem. And although I didn't know the issue we had in our relationship would be fixed, I went to the airport, got on a flight, and I flew 22 hours to Indonesia to more than anything apologize.
Wow.
Because I felt like I threw a good thing away for a bad reason and I know I hurt her and I knew that even though I didn't think she would be interested in me or take me back or anything like that, I knew that if I am to be the mature person I am, my apology, if it's not manipulation, should come without an expectation.
Right.
You see what I mean? Because when apologies come with an expectation, they are just manipulations.
Yes.
I thought you just actually have to go there and say what you mean and leave it there and then come back.
Not try to get in a relationship with her, but just do it for the sake of you being a good person.
Yeah, exactly.
And owning up to your part of the street.
And then-- 'Cause then I could have another relationship with someone else and start the record personally in myself that I am now the mature person who's willing to communicate and be humble and admit his own deficiencies. So I could then be the person I wanted to be for the next person. And it just ended up being a very, probably one of the most interesting moments of my life, how that situation played out. Because I got there, she was being very distant with me.
Did she know you were coming?
Did you tell her? Yeah, like last minute. So when I was in the Doha airport, I said, oh, brother, I'm gonna be in Bali, so it'd be nice to see you. She was very distant with me. She wouldn't come near me. She was like sat quite far away from me when we met with some friends. and then as the days went on and on, she said, Look, I don't know what the future holds, I'm staying here, and I could see it, so I apologized to her anyway. Then on the second, the next day, by the way, that was an ego blow. That was a moment where my chimp brain showed up and said, Take revenge, play a game, try and get her back. But fortunately, by this time in my life, the other part of me that knew I had self-sabotaged myself with my ego for years, and that the games had always failed me, manipulating someone has always failed me, abandoning my like character.
And integrity has always failed me.
The chase, All of that had always failed me. So in that moment, which she said, I'm gonna stay here in Bali, super graceful and nice, thankfully. I see all of these things like a balancing act and it's like which force will win? You don't have to be a hundred percent mature, but if you're 60-40 and that's the words that come out your mouth, that's a good place to start. And fortunately, in that moment, my maturity won. The next thing is she sits me down the next day, He goes, I've been sleeping with someone since we broke up.
Oh!
Zing!
And I'm like, that pressure, how are you gonna show up with that pressure?
And again, my chimp shows up, it says, Finish her. Oh, my god! It says, Manipulate, games, tell her off, make her feel like. Oh, wow. That's my ego. It goes, Go on, Steve, da da da. But, fortunately, and this, I, that's my ego. I gave her a kiss on the cheek. I was like, I understand, I understand. We can't, we're in a co-working thing, we carried on doing our work. By the way, at this point, we're not romantic, so we're not, I'm just, babe, it's okay, give me a hug. Thank you for telling me. You didn't have to tell me. And I literally looked her in the eye and I remember saying to her, she'll listen to this. I was like, I know that must have been hard to say to me. So thank you because you've told me. You didn't have to tell me, but you've told me because X, Y and Z. We carried on working.
Next day, this is where... You ended it with her. It's been a year.
What's she gonna do? Yeah, exactly. Where your ego doesn't care. Yeah, of course. Your ego doesn't care if you ended it, if it was your fault. Your ego gets triggered, especially I think this is quite a masculine thing from what I've read as well. We get triggered in a different psychological way because of various prehistoric reasons which I won't go into. And then the last thing was I realized that she was gonna stay here. She wasn't interested in me, so I was gonna leave. And I sent her this really wonderful message and a voice note, which I've played before publicly on stage. And I said, I'm leaving Bali on Saturday, but listen, you're on your journey. It's been amazing to see you, et cetera, et cetera. She responds, And she says, she's surprised, but she says, okay, okay, can I see you before you go? My ego shows up. Don't let her see you before you go. That's your last chance of getting a victory.
Oh no.
Do not let her see, make her feel bad. Play a game.
Oh man.
You've got the power vest.
If she's giving you- She wants something.
Yeah.
You take it away from her.
Yeah, to take it away from her. That's one last ego restoring victory. And then reflection. asking myself who I am and who I want to be, what my values actually are and what has succeeded in film in the past, I said, sure, you can see me before I go. And in those three days, everything changed.
What happened?
She made plans for us over those three days. It was like, and I'm not sure if this is a karmic thing or a spiritual thing or whatever it is, but it was like she realized I'd finally learned how to love her. And it was like life had sent me these three tests to check. If I still had that ego, if I was still immature, if I was willing to hold a safe space. And because I passed those three tests, those last three days, everything changed. And we have been wildly in love ever since, to the point where I'm sure she's my wife. I'm sure we're going to be. I could have ruined that on three occasions. There was three challenges like that.
She was testing you.
Whether she was thinking of a test or not. She would never think of it. Right.
She's too pure. She's too sensitive. It's the human experience to say, well, I don't fully trust this. Okay, I'm gonna shoot, maybe not thinking, but it's just the body's response probably.
Yeah.
It just comes out.
It taught me something about the body. But she would know if you would have reacted differently in any of those three, you should have been like, something's not safe here. Like she would have not trusted you.
To be able to want to get back in a relationship. But is the world not doing that to all of us in all facets of our life? Of course. Is it not sending us tests, whether it's the barista who you might be rude to that day that turns out to be the daughter of the person that you end up going and trying to pitch business to in three years time, is life not testing us at all times to see what we're ready for and what we deserve? And that's kind of the broader picture lesson I learned was like, Mel never had to change. In fact, nothing externally needed to change for me to get the results I'd always been looking for in my life. I had to change. And then the world sent me things, and this sounds very woo-woo, and I'm the least woo-woo person you'll ever meet. The world sent me a different set of things. It said, because you've changed, we're gonna mirror a different set of results. That old Einstein quote about doing the same thing and expecting different results. Yes, you've taught me this as well because if you have a huge amount of self-responsibility when it comes to your relationships, you say, I did that. I said this to you last time we spoke. When you're talking about your past relationships that have failed, you said, but that's on me. And you say, because I picked them. And I think about that so much because I had my hairdresser come to my place in LA the other day and he walks in, starts cutting my hair and says, My girlfriend, she's not really interested in me. She's been talking to a lot of other guys and she's been going for this guy just because he's got money. And he walked in and when he walked in, he had this $2,000 sneakers on, a Louis Vuitton bag dripping in diamonds and gold. And I thought, you,'ve got what you deserve. And people hate that. The concept that the people that they've attracted into their life, the results they've attracted into their life, are a mirror of who they are. and I said to him, I said.
Well, what did she do?
Well, she's a hostess in a nightclub. Okay. And what, like, how did you meet her? Well, I was in, you know, I was at a, at one of the tables in the nightclub, and I was one of the big spenders, so they.
Put on my table.
So you're attracting from that space. Yeah, that's, that's what you've attracted. So if you did some work on you to figure out why you need to wear diamonds all the time, where that comes from, that need for validation or whatever it is, you could drop the diamonds, you could stop buying the Don Perignon in the nightclub and you might end up in a different environment and attracting someone else for other reasons and values. And it was the same with me throughout my entire life. Until I did the work on me, I attracted all the wrong people.
Really?
Oh, God, of course. Attracted all the wrong people that wanted me for all the wrong things, that wanted me for the mansion in the.
Countryside or the Range Rover or the car.
The car you have now is pretty sweet. Yeah, I don't actually, funnily enough, I don't actually have a driving license, so I have a driver. Oh, wow, yeah. So, but I can't drive. I lost my license, I thought, I.
Don'T need it anymore anyway, so.
Yeah, and so, yeah, I think about that a lot now because I had to do the work to find the love I was looking for.
You can't blame others. You gotta take responsibility and ownership. And that's why I say with you, it's like for me, maybe there was things that I didn't like about these other relationships I was in, but I was the one choosing those relationships. I was the one staying after, you know, six months, 12 months, two years, when it wasn't working and things weren't shifting and I continued to repeat the patterns that I was bringing into the relationship. So we all have choices, but When we blame others, it's really easy, but.
When we take responsibility, it's much harder. I think 30 to 35 will be about authentic, true alignment and balance in my life. So I'm now in a relationship, which is a very surprising thing, if you know my backstory. Why is that surprising? Well, because growing up, I'd see my parents screaming at each other every day for like seven hours, eight hours. My mum screaming at my dad, sitting there passively, and he just took it. So my dad would just be watching the TV and in the left side of his peripheral, my mom would be screaming from two meters away in his face. And I used to watch that as a kid. And I used to say to dad, don't take it. Dad, do something about it. Don't let her scream at you. And it wouldn't stop anything. And then I think at seven years old, he called me in and said, by the way, just so you know, me and my mom don't love each other. I don't love your mother and we're gonna get a divorce. They didn't. At 10 they called me in and said, I'm gonna get a divorce, by the way, we don't love each other. I've watched her chase him around the house with a knife and smashing him, like him trying to defend himself with the doors. So the model I learned about love was that love was prison. Oh, and I didn't know I'd learned that lesson. And fascinating things happened to me throughout my life and this kind of speaks to really understanding what your self-story is. At 14 years old, I pursued a girl religiously called Jasmine. I was obsessed with her. And then one day I won. She turned to me, Steve, after school, I remember where we were after school and she said, Fine, I'll be in a relationship with you, let's do it. And I went, no, no, no, this is about, no, don't, don't, Jasmine, don't, don't. And I would, do not, I did everything in my power to dissuade her from that.
Never understood why I always did that. At 23, 24. So, wait, you wanted to be in a relationship with her, you chased her for weeks or months or years. Years.
And then she said, okay, let's do it. Yeah. And then you sabotaged it. You sabotaged.
Why?
Because in that moment, something inside me put myself in my dad's shoes, which was, you are in prison, you are a bird trapped in a cage, you have to run. And it was actually journaling, it was doing my podcast, it was that real, honest introspection at maybe 25 years old, where I look at myself and go, why have you never had a girlfriend and always self-sabotaged? Where has that come from? And one good question is, that feeling you had that day when you were 14, when Jasmine finally turned to you and said she loved you too, and she wanted to give it a shot. That feeling in your stomach, where was the other time you felt that? Well, it was staring at your father, watching him being screamed at by your mother. And then I kind of managed to put together the dots that my model of love, the one I learned first, was that as a man, love and a relationship is a prison sentence. It will inhibit your freedom. That's the story I believed. It was central to everything I did, thought, And how I form my relationships equally. It didn't just impact romantic relationships. It was relationships.
So if someone said, friends, business partners.
Someone said the word best friend to me. Oh, Steve's my best friend.
Cringe.
I would go, oh, that's so awkward. I'd feel something. My body almost like convulsed like, oh, and they'd never know it. But I think, please don't. I had an intimacy problem. Wow. Because I thought intimacy was a jail sentence. When did you learn that it wasn't a jail sentence? Just like many months of work with my diary.
What year?
How old?
24-25. Never had a relationship until 24-25.
Really?
Never, never.
Did you have one then? At 25?
No. My first relationship was when I was 26. But it was just trying to understand why? Like, what is it? What is it like? What is the belief that's at the core of my behavior? And there's always a belief at the core of behavior. We are basically creatures living out the stories we told ourselves about ourselves and the world a long time ago. And having studied childhood psychology, fortunately, it's one of the things that I'm so happy I studied. I understand how formative that early zero to ten in your life is. I understand how I've seen the studies with the resource monkeys that they've done, where one small thing, a lack of affection, one small defining incident or traumatic event on the playground can shape your self-story so much more than any preceding evidence does. So even though if at 15, 16, 17, 18, there's evidence in your life presented to show that that thing that happened wasn't true, that story you told yourself is invalid, it won't, it's not a stronger force than that 0 to 10 period. That's where we learn how to survive. And some of the survival lessons are great. Put water in your mouth, put food in your body. But some of them, unless you unlearn them, will end up being the bane of your adulthood and the bane of your life. So this is what, you know, people think of self-development as this process of learning stuff, but there's two of course, necessary things.
Yeah.
Unlearn and learn at the same time if you can. And central to being able to do either is being able to read yourself. Yes. As I always say, there's no self-development without self-awareness and you can read as many books as you like, but if you can't read yourself, you'll never learn a thing. And I learned that the hard way.
So when you were 26 and in this first kind of, sounds like maybe relationship kind of relationship wasn't full relationship.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, it was a relationship.
How long was the relationship? It lasted for one year before I... Sabotaged it. Pretty much. Well, I just didn't, I was so.
Mature because of my first one, so I destroyed it.
Yeah.
So what was the thing you unlearned.
In that first year of that relationship? Three years ago, by the way. Yeah, do you know, sometimes it takes the right person. I think you can relate to this.
Of course.
Sometimes it takes a certain person who goes maybe at a certain tempo, they give you a certain energy which counteracts the trigger. So my trigger was any impingement or anything that felt like it was touching the walls of my freedom. Then I would have a adverse reaction run.
I know that feeling, man.
Yeah, you know the feeling, right? One of the things that I really relate, I realized this was because When I dated someone previously, not a relationship, but just dated them, when they'd argued at me in a loud tone, I did what I always wished my dad would do. I get up, I got my stuff, I got in my car, and I drove away. They didn't even know I'd gone. And it was 3 a.m. and it was my house. It was that mansion I told you about.
Wow.
I got in my, she argued with me, and I tried to talk to her. She shouted at me again, saying the same thing. So repeating him, that was one of my triggers. My mum would do seven hours round and round and round to my dad. I got in the car, she didn't even know I'd gone, and I drove off at 3 a.m. And I was, because I will never argue with anyone. Because my dad didn't either. It's never been productive. I've never seen the model of it being really productive to scream at someone, right?
We have disagreements, but screaming. Screaming is not acceptable for me. Like it's something that I experienced in my life as well, we've talked about this, you know, childhood stuff, but also in relationships. I attracted types of personalities that liked to scream and yell. And then I would just kind of sit there and try to like, okay, it's okay, you know. But then it's really hurting yourself at the end of the day when you allow that to happen and not create a boundary. You're abandoning yourself, you're abandoning the little child inside of you that experienced this pain. And so you just would leave at that point.
I would leave. And at 26, so the girl I met called Mel, She did not scream. She didn't have that commitment. She had that really mature.
She was peaceful, loving.
She allowed me to have my independence. She wasn't threatened if I had to fly away and work. It was me meeting the person that could counteract that self-story I told myself about relationships. She was the opposite of my mother. To show you it's possible. Yeah.
It showed you, hey, you don't have to be trapped in a relationship.
That's exactly, I've actually never thought about that before, but she is the opposite of my mother. In every way.
Because usually we kind of attract the parent that we need to kind of heal or fix the childhood wound. It's like we attract that person until we learn the lesson.
No, yeah, I've never actually thought about that. But yeah, my mother was loud, didn't listen, scream would restrict your freedom. Mel is the opposite. She will talk. She will, I remember one day when she flew in to New York to see me where I was running the office out there. And the minute she landed, I get an email saying, you've got to fly to San Diego. We're a social chain. We're about to close a deal on this big company out here on this coast. $50 million. Can you get on a plane now? Go to the airport now and fly? Mel had just, we've not seen each other for a month and a half. She's just landed. She gets to my house. I know I've got to go out the door. And I say to her, like, I'm babe, but, you know, I'm stumbling over.
My words to her because, you think she's this before.
She's gonna explode. Oh, yeah. You got the trigger. You got the, the fear of the past. Yeah, we've talked about this. This was my test. Yeah, whether it's right to test someone or not, but it's the test of whether I can be honest and true and open with you and not get scolded and yelled at and go back to like lying or something or being dishonest or having to end our relationship. So she lands, she walks and I say, There's this deal. I'm like, stuttering over my words because I'm like, she's gonna just be angry like my last thing was. my last relationship was, and she looks at me and she gives me a kiss on the cheek and she goes, it's okay babe, it's good, you go do it babe, you go do it. She goes, woo, woo, woo, touching my shoulder, she goes, woo, woo, woo, this is so amazing. And then I literally had the conversation.
With her, I was, I'm really surprised by your reaction, I was expecting, and she goes, babe, you having to go sometimes keeps spice in our relationship. There you go. How do you know when they've made a good choice versus seeing, you know, two, three, four red flags that maybe your daughters wouldn't see? and being able to give wisdom to them without pushing them away from making their own decisions. How do you know they're making a good decision?
Well, you know when they're not.
When they're unhappy, when they're complaining, when they're stressed.
No, you know when they're not. You know when you're not, they're not because they become an insecure, people-pleasing freak and they start to attach their entire self-worth to what this dude that they're chasing thinks about them. And so when you see your kid, boy, girl, you know, even like anywhere on the gender spectrum, when you see your kid become deeply insecure and consumed by somebody else's attention, that is the wrong choice, period. And I think that the, like on one hand, I think it's amazing that there is so much kind of body positivity and sexual freedom and women are super empowered and so are men and all. But personally, I am horrified by how fast kids have sex. I am horrified by how casual it is. I think it is terrible for the mental health of girls and boys. I think the focus on, there is the self-expression in terms of your sexuality and your body, but the pressure on girls in particular and young women to put it all out there to be sexual beings, it's just, it's setting you up for getting hurt.
It's setting you up for getting hurt, too, and hurting yourself and feeling confused.
Well, here's the thing. Women cannot have sex without getting emotionally attached.
100% agree. And men, they can't do a casual-.
They can't get emotionally attached until they have sex. Like we are literally wired in the opposite way. And so for women, like, I'm sorry, you cannot have sex and not have some sort of emotional connection.
There's no casual for women.
There isn't. And so the culture has shifted in a direction. that does not serve women's mental health. And this is not about whether or not you should or shouldn't have sex or any of that. It's really about understanding the impact that sex has on your mental health when you're not in a safe or committed relationship. And that's it. And the truth is that there are things that are going on in your chemistry, in your neurology, in your DNA that are tied to survival and to generations past that are way bigger than just the intercourse and the orgasm that you're having with this one person. And so one of the things that I find to be extremely difficult as a parent is counseling daughters through this process of online dating, of casual sex, of the hookup culture, of girls convincing themselves that they're okay with this.
And it's empowering themselves. Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't buy it. I don't buy it at all.
There's just so much.
I mean, and here's why I would say to my girls, and I'm sorry that this is crude. I'm sorry. Like, what do you mean you're concerned about texting him? His penis was inside you. What? How could you not? Text him back. I'll tell you why. Because I had casual sex, now I'm emotionally invested, and now I'm insecure. And so it's like the reverse of where the boundaries you need to have with yourself. And here's the ironic thing that I think young women don't understand. If you like somebody and you don't hook up with them, They're gonna want you more.
Mm-. 100%.
They're gonna want you more. If they're interested in you now, they will be interested in you next week. And if you literally are having sex with people when they're right in front of you. Without that, they're only going to want you for sex.
Absolutely.
That's it.
The longer you make someone wait, the more time you have to get to really know their heart also. You get to know them, their values, their vision. Like, do we wanna be in a relationship? Do you really wanna enter your life with someone?
That's the profound sound way. Like, I'm actually just talking about, like, so you're asking, how do I advise, like, even my daughter's friends or, like, anybody that, that is writing into the podcast. So, first of all, everybody is super motivated intrinsically by what they want. So let's just take the situation that you see somebody that's attractive, right? And you really want to get to know them better. The way to connect with somebody that you're attracted with is not Don't have sex with them.
Don't have sex.
Do not.
It's not.
And here's something else that especially for men, that if you deny them what.
They want, they'll want you more.
The chase mechanism kicks in in your brain. You want them more. If you have going on, 'cause you're a cool person, they're gonna want you more. People wanna have sex with somebody that's available 'cause they wanna have an orgasm. People are interested in pursuing something with somebody who they have to chase. I'm not talking about playing games. I'm just talking about the basic power dynamic here. It makes perfect sense that if you have sex with somebody the first night you meet them, all they're ever gonna look at you for is sex.
That's it.
That's it. And that's it. And so, That's it, everybody.
That's why I think wait as long as you can. Wait as long as you can. Yeah, it doesn't have to be wait till marriage type of thing. I'm not saying that, but wait until you, if you want to, unless you know- I don't think you should wait for marriage. I think you should wait until you know you want to be in a.
Committed relationship with this person, personally.
Well, at least exclusive. Exactly, yeah. Unless you're saying, Hey, listen, I don't.
Care if I ever see this person again. Okay, then have sex with them. Then you're having an orgasm. Exactly.
Right, that's fine.
But I'm just saying, I don't think.
Women can do that.
It's very hard, I think.
Not based on our wiring. Yeah, it's very challenging.
So wait if you can. Well, if you actually want it to.
Be more than an orgasm, yes. And if you don't, then realize you might have a letdown. You might have a letdown, you might have some emotionally unwinding to do because there might be an expectation that this.
Guy is not willing to fulfill after you have sex. But see, I don't think there's a big enough conversation about the connection between sex and mental health. and that, you know, if you're in the dating culture and all the pressure to have sex and then the shame and the guilt and the insecurity and the anxiety that comes when you make decisions that you then regret, or it doesn't play out the way that you had hoped it did, even though you knew deep in your heart it was probably a dumb decision. And so you asked me originally, like, what do I do when, you know, how have I counseled my daughters who are now an exclusive committed relationships, you know when they are chasing the wrong thing. You just do.
Your daughters.
Yes, because they're not themselves.
They're acting out of whack and they're stressed and they're anxious.
Yeah, they're like questioning whether they should reach out to somebody. They're questioning whether the person likes them. They're questioning what they should do. They're like everything becomes about that person's validation of you.
As opposed to living their life.
Yes. And having somebody come into your life that's additive. Is somebody bringing positive additive energy or is somebody a gigantic distraction that amplifies your insecurity? If you don't know how the other person feels about you, I can tell you right now, They're not interested in you for the long haul.
If they're really interested, they're not telling you. They're not showing you. They're telling you.
If you're confused about how they feel, they're not interested in you. And that's all you need to know.
Focus on your life.
You were an orgasm. It's really crude to say. But we spend so much time up here. So here's another tool. I've been experimenting a lot. Louis, with two different approaches to mental health, to mindset, to healing, to peace, to happiness. So, one approach is any tool that you use that is neck up, meaning what are you thinking about? Okay? So, I think what the problem is for most of us is we spend all of our energy up here from the neck up trying to figure out through our thoughts. When the truth is, if you go from the neck down and you go into your body, you know if you feel secure or not around somebody. That's the only answer you need. And nine times out of ten, when I've seen my daughters or their friends or people that I love in the wrong relationship, It's because they're chasing somebody because they want validation. They're chasing somebody because they believe that if that person likes me or that person is hooking up with me, then that means everybody else will think something about me. And when they're in the right relationship, they are themselves, they're more of themselves. They're secure. They're not playing games. There's a directness to them that, you know, and I always say, like, I know it's the wrong advice to give 20 somethings, but I'm like, stop with the f***ing rules. Just communicate.
That's it.
And if somebody is a match, they'll be direct back. If they like you, guess what? They're over there going, oh, should I text her or not text her too much? And so if somebody likes you, and you communicate directly, you will have a match. If you are chasing validation because of what your partner looks like, or if this person hooks up with me, or that person, or this person, or the other thing, or it's all like a game. You have a way that you deal with pain, because when you feel disappointed, that is a form of pain. And a lot of us either withdraw from it, or we try to expel it in some way.
Yes.
Or you try to outrun it.
Yeah, another thing I was thinking about as you're saying this is kind of like figuring out what your main currency is in a relationship, why you want to have a relationship, and your main currency in life. For me, at this season of my life, my main currency is peace. Wanting to create and experience peace within me and within my relationship. Because the world is going to have challenges and disasters and adversities and my business, there's going to be things already thrown at me in my life. But in my relationship, I want peace. So that was it. And she wants, you know, adventure and exploration and fun and all these things, but she wants peace as well. And so I'm like, okay, cool. I'm cool with all that as long as it's peaceful too, you know?
Well, one of the things that I'm working on right now, and I don't have the answer to this, is I, you know, obviously I know I married an introvert. Right? And Chris is the definition of peace.
That's nice.
I mean, the guy is a- that's amazing. -Buddhist meditation instructor.
Incredible.
He is getting a master's in transpersonal psychology right now. He leads men's retreats. He's a yoga instructor. He works for hospice. He's about to get a certificate to be a death doula. Like when you talk about somebody that is deeply spiritual, grounded, introverted, person who really connects with people one-on-one, that's my husband. And so the thing that I'm really trying to figure out in this next chapter of our marriage, because I feel like in many ways we are in the beginning of a second marriage, because we have done so much work on ourselves and our kids are now grown up, and there's this opportunity after 28 years to really look at each other with fresh eyes, right?
It's beautiful.
It's so beautiful.
It's huge.
And so I, instead of, there's two things that I want to share that have really helped me. One is, instead of focusing on the things that I don't like about Chris, right? And there are plenty of things he does not like about me. But if he could wave a magic wand, I would change this about my wife, Mel. One of the things that I've done is to say, well, what is, like, describe two moments where you just felt that, like, oh my God, this is my person. And so there are two moments, and this is a great exercise to do. Like, just think, what are those two moments that really encapsulate, like, just that flood of peace and love and safety and connection? And one of them for me with Chris is this. We had just met and we were meeting to go out to dinner after work in New York City. And I was standing in front of that Flatiron Building on 23rd.
I love it.
And I looked up 5th Ave and I could see Chris coming. And he was wearing a suit and he had a messenger bag slung over his shoulders. He had Ray-Bans on. and he was rollerblading and weaving in and out of traffic because he grew up as a ski racer and he's like a big adventurer. And he had this huge smile on his face. And it was like strength at play, right? That was what I felt. And then the second thing that came to mind is that when we first got Together, we almost, like a couple months after knowing each other, we went out to Utah to meet his best friend who was already married. And Jeff and Darce live in Idaho and like they're basically pioneers, you know, they hunt, they fish, they like live in a log cabin, built their own house, like they're freaking amazing. And so we went fishing and there was a freak snowstorm that night. And so literally it started snowing as we're cooking dinner, like in June, dude. And so I'm thinking, what have I gotten myself into? So I go back to the tent and I'm rummaging around for a sweatshirt of some kind and I notice my sleeping bag is warm. And I flip the bag open and Chris has filled up one of those Nalgene bottles with hot water he had boiled on a campfire and stuck it in there like a hot pocket.
That's pretty nice.
Right?
Very thoughtful.
Yes.
And so those are two memories. And so I came up with this.
He's doing an active service for you. No, because that's what he wants. So he's doing the thing he wants.
No kidding. And meanwhile, I'm ignoring him and telling him he's so amazing. And he can't even hear it because he wants acts of service. And so because his parents weren't home, right? Growing up. So he, so I developed an avatar. For the behavior in Chris that I love, I call it my trip leader. Because when we're out hiking, when we're on an adventure, Chris is in charge. He has strength at play. He is a caretaker. He's 55 steps ahead of me. I'm the yard sale in the back. That's cool. Like that is when he shines. And so it has been super helpful for me to remind myself that he's a trip leader because it makes me take a step back. And it allows him to take a step forward into his power. So that's one thing that I've been working on. And the second thing that I'm working on is this sense, you called it peace. And we've talked about this sort of mismatch and the mismatch being that you might speak different love languages. You might have different values or different lifestyles. Extrovert, introvert. Extrovert, introvert, all that kind of stuff. That if you are gonna work to close that gap somehow without changing one another, realize that your marriage doesn't have to be everything and it shouldn't be. And so for a while, I started to get nervous because Chris is very introverted. I mean, we live in Southern Vermont on the side of a mountain now. And I started to realize, I'm actually sad here all the time. Like a part of me needs this spaciousness, but I have to be around people.
Me too.
I have to be around people.
I need to go walk somewhere.
Yeah.
And grab coffee. Yes. I need to go see people.
Do something. Not every day.
Yeah.
And so I started to realize, well, wait a minute. I don't have to turn Chris into, like, the party guy. I can have my friends be that. I can have work be that. Like, I can fill that in different areas instead of being frustrated. that this one person isn't filling everything. And so really recognizing, I think, what somebody's capacity is, allowing them to step forward in certain roles, but allowing them to be themselves and step back in others and not punishing them for it.
100%.
That is something that I've been re-- Chris is better at it than I am. Like, he's way more forgiving. He's way kinder. He's more patient. Sure.
He's probably creating boundaries just like you are.
Oh yeah.
Which is key.
Yeah.
You know we've spent the last three therapy sessions talking about boundaries? Boundaries?
Nope. What?
A new puppy.
Getting a new puppy. One of you wants one, one of you doesn't. The whole family wants a puppy.
But you don't?
Chris doesn't. He doesn't. Yes. Because he knows he's gonna have to.
Do all the work.
Yes!
He's like, I don't want this.
I'm already doing all the work. Yeah, for the dog that we got.
Two and a half years ago.
Exactly. He's already like two hours of my day is going towards the dog activities while you guys are off working and doing this and running your lives. Yeah. It's a lot of big responsibility.
Well, because the puppy is an example of bigger themes.
And he doesn't want to abandon himself to please others.
Yes.
And that's probably what he's done for 26 years. Not with everything. I'm sure it's not like all like that, but. this is what I had to learn in the last two years of therapy, too, is just like, okay, I was always trying to make someone else happy because they were never happy with who I was. They never accepted me, so they always wanted to change me. And so I would change who I am to try to please them. Right. And then after months and months and years, you're like, I'm just abandoning who my real nature is for one human being and dimming my light. I'm not trying to blame anyone here. This is all my responsibility by choosing and staying in relationships. So it's not their fault, it's my responsibility to exit or to know this when it happens and have a conscious conversation calmly and take responsibility and say, no, I'm not going to do this. Are you okay with who I am? But I think creating those boundaries and not abandoning yourself is such a key element to healthy relationships. So it takes a lot of courage after 26 years for him to start speaking up probably about what he needs. As opposed to just saying, Okay, it'll make all my family happy.
I'm going to do this. -Well, he was trained as a kid that his knees don't matter. -Absolutely. -It's really good for him. -And so, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. It's a huge gift to have this side of my husband showing up after.
All of these years.
And it's a huge gift to me to actually have a partner that's helping me heal and be softer. -That's beautiful. -And, have somebody take care of me. And it's just incredible. And so, you know, the thing is, is that the wrong relationship magnifies your insecurity and your emotional dysregulation. And the right relationship with a lot of work helps you heal.
What do you think is more important in a relationship to make sure your values are in alignment, to make sure your shared vision is in alignment or your lifestyle? the way you want to live your life. Like one wants to travel more and the other wants to stay home.
I think lifestyle is most, the thing people fight about more than anything is money. Even people with lots of money, the number one thing we fight about is money. And the second is choice. Even if they have a housekeeper.
Really?
Yeah.
So that must tell you that lifestyle is everything. You see, you don't have to have the same values. You could be of a different religion. you could be Muslim, I could be Hindu, we can actually get on. We could come from a different culture and we can work that out. I come from a family where everybody was divorced and my husband doesn't, but we get on really well. So I think values are nice, but that's, you know, we've got to have exactly the same values. We don't always have the same values. Some people value things more. I mean, Some of the things my husband likes to watch on television, I find the boy hates all my, oh, that's a chick thing. I was trying to, what was it? I was watching the new episode of Sex and the City. He's like, oh, I hate this. I actually didn't love it either. I said, no, I've got to watch it. I'm invested in it now. So sometimes he'll go and do something else. It's like if you're with someone who loves sport and you don't, you don't have to love sport. My husband loves cooking. He's always cooking. I don't really love that. I don't mind, but it's all shopping and then the chopping and then the cleaning. I'm like, let's just grill some fish. But he likes so that. But we don't have the same thing because I don't value cooking at all the way he does. But lifestyle, if you're up all night and your partner goes to bed early, if you're an outdoor person, you love to travel, they love to stay home, you love family and they don't. I think life's you're going to spend the rest of your life with one person. So I think you should look, I mean so many issues about our kids are going to private school, no they're not. I believe in punishment, I don't believe in that. It makes a very unhappy home. So lifestyle is important, values are important too and goals and dreams are important but you can have different goals. Like my husband has no desire to write best-selling books, you could say not but Imagine if he did, we'd be competing. But when I'm writing, he cooks me lovely food, he brings me tea and coffee, he knows I have to be left alone because I'm in a writing mode. So we're not the same, because he has no interest. He tried once to write a book, he absolutely hated it. He threw the whole thing away. But I couldn't do what he does. So are our values the same?
Yeah.
Are our goals and dreams the same?
No.
But is our lifestyle the same? Yeah, we like the same thing. We tend to go to bed together, get up together. We like to travel to the same places. You know, if I was with someone who wanted to go out all night until 2 a.m. Be hard. That would be really hard, because if I was with someone who wanted to bring people home every night and have a party, that wouldn't work. So I think we really forget that having the same lifestyle It's really important because that's what people fight about the most.
I got a couple of final questions here. What do you think we should feel when we start dating someone and we've been dating them for a while? What do you think we need to think or feel or know internally that we can move forward towards a commitment?
Your feelings are the most real thing you have. I always think you should feel your feelings until they no longer require require to be felt. I was saying, I met this person, I didn't really like them, but oh my God, the sex was amazing. So I overlooked all these things. I met this person who was mean, rude to waiters, dismissive, rude to my family, but they were just so compelling and so gorgeous and so out of my league that I tolerated it. Tune into your feelings, they will tell you very quickly You know, our gut is our gut instinct, our gut is the second brain. If someone doesn't seem nice and doesn't seem kind and is treating you badly, why stay? Why wait for that to get better? If you feel that they're not really a nice person, then why hang around? If you notice behavior that's a red flag, they always forget their credit card. They seem to diminish. You know, I don't know how I ended up with a narcissist. But often we do, we go, yeah, I just overlooked that.
There was something else that was more compelling.
They were so good looking or so nice or they were very generous. They took me to great places and I overlooked the fact that either they were annoying or mean or even boring. I just thought, I'll stick this out. You know, your feelings are the most real thing you have and you've got to feel your feelings until you get the message and then they go away. And often we just ignore feelings.
Can your feelings ever lie to you?
No, I don't think so.
I met many of us out on my wedding day. I knew it. And one of my friends said, I knew I was marrying the wrong person on my wedding day. I waited for my wife to come there, and I knew I was making a mistake, but I couldn't let people down. You know, Charles and Diana both tried to call off their wedding. Both of them knew it was wrong, but they felt, well, we've got to go ahead with it.
Right.
If your feelings are saying no that early, then at least go, hey, there's no rush to get married, there's no rush to move in, there's no rush. I mean, there maybe is a rush to have children, but more problems occur from picking the wrong person or staying with the wrong person because you're not tuning into your feelings. When you tune into your feelings, you know, because the feeling is I feel a feeling of rightness. with this person. I love waking up to this person. I love coming home to this person. Even on my worst day when they annoy me, I imagine my life without them and think, oh no, my life's so much better with them. So I don't think your feelings can ever lie because they come from the gut, which is a seat of your emotion. I think we lie to ourselves, but our feelings don't lie. And you know, in the 10 people in that book, every single one of them had lied to themselves that there's a girl in there who wanted to kill herself and her lie was, I've got to be good. I need to be good. And I said, but being good makes you want to die? She goes, I know. I said, I think it's time to stop being good. She said, you, know, I'm going straight to Victoria's Secret now. I said, yeah, I think you need to be bad. You need to be naughty. If being good makes you want to die, what's the point? And then the girl in there with OCD and OCD is nothing more than, I can't control what's going on in here, but all the cups are gonna be just right and everything. Now I can control out there because I can't control in here. And for her, it was just a question of, look, control in here. Look at the thoughts and change them.
What's been the biggest lessons you've learned since being married the last couple years then that have been different than when you guys were married? Has anything changed or do you feel like everything we talked about beforehand, before pre-engagement, Before marriage we've followed through on and so nothing has really drastically changed except for we live together now and we're married, but it's all been you know, you've both been in integrity with what you committed to and so has anything changed in your mind or?
For anyone who gets married or you move into a close relationship like this, the change is embracing another person in your life and accepting the fact that they are a different person from you.
Yes.
They have different perspectives, different life experiences, different educational backgrounds, all of these things in their life that have shaped their perspective. And now you are trying to do life together. Yeah, you're in this boat, you're rowing together. So it is a constant adjustment to allowing people to have the space to be who they are and have their perspectives and share those perspectives and realizing no matter what, you're on the same team. So the choices that you're making now, it's not just about you anymore. It is what is best for the team. So having that teamwork mentality, is the adjustment. And hopefully when you go in, you've done enough of the work to where you're not the weak link on your team.
Yes, right, right, right.
Because you don't want to be the weak link.
Someone's always picking up your slack, yeah.
So, but just realizing and embracing that teamwork mentality. Even when you have an argument, even when you have a disagreement, Your goal is not to win. Your goal is to find a solution that is best to move the team forward.
Yeah.
My friend Jay Shetty says, in an argument or a challenging discussion, it shouldn't be the person against the other person. It should be both people against the challenge, against the problem. And coming together on how do we solve the problem, not here's my solution, you're wrong, I'm right or whatever. But coming together on that and I think that's a beautiful practice to focus on the challenge, not what you did this and it makes me upset, you know? So both finding the solution. I love this. This has been really powerful. You've got an amazing book, Sis, Don't Settle: How to Stay Smart in the Matters of the Heart. I think it's really challenging to let your head make the decisions for your heart, but you need your head to make sure that you're not allowing your heart to miss out on the red flags or signs that your heart might not be looking for. So you kind of need both to be connected to really make sure you're in alignment, you're using your emotions and also seeing the facts and the data and you're using all of it to make a conscious decision about entering a relationship and then taking it to the next level. You've got so many great lessons and stories in here. You've got a lot of your own experience, personal experience, obviously from, I wouldn't call them failures, they're just lessons. They were relationships that weren't in alignment to where you want to be. There's nothing wrong with that. We've all had those. You had a lot of those lessons. And also being in divorce court and watching all of these people go through challenges and heartaches and the pains. So you have so many different lessons on how to make sure we hopefully eliminate that and don't have to experience those things in relationships. So very excited about the book, Sit Don't Settle, How to Stay Smart in the Matters of the Heart. Faith Jenkins, I've got a couple of final questions for you.
Can I tell you why I wrote this book?
Yeah, go ahead.
I did not have these huge standards of love in my life growing up and didn't really know what a true, loving, healthy relationship looked like.
Yeah. You didn't have a model. You didn't have a good model, yeah.
Didn't have the model.
And.
I realized as I started dating and I moved to New York, started dating in New York, And I realized when I started dating that I really didn't have a source to pull from to learn the do's and the don'ts and some of these things that would have helped me along my journey to make some better decisions. So a lot of things I learned the hard way. Sometimes that's good in life, but people watch your podcast, they read books because they actually, they want to learn how to minimize some of the mistakes that they can make.
Absolutely.
And so, because I, if you want love, if you want a loving marriage, you want a lover relationship, I believe that you can have it. But how do you get there? How do you get to that point? And so this book was really a passion project. What I wanted to write, you know, being single in my 20s and 30s, how I navigated all of the challenging experiences, all of the questions, the pressure from outsiders and all of those things to get to the point where I am now two years happily married with the husband that I dreamed about having for so long. And I don't think that that story is just meant for me. I believe it's something that anyone who wants to have that kind of love in their life that they can have.
Absolutely. I think it's beautiful. in a modern world of online dating and swiping and hookup culture and people thinking they have more and more options available, but being less fulfilled and less happy because they're unsure of how to navigate these waters. I think it's really powerful for your lessons and your story and your examples to share in this book. So I'm excited for people to check this out. I want to acknowledge your faith for not settling. 'Cause I think it's really easy for people to settle. And there's nothing, you know, bad or wrong about that, but I think you were very clear on what you wanted. You made your own mistakes, but you learned every time and you got to this point. And I think it's really inspiring to see, specifically a woman, wait until they're in their 40s to get married in this time when there is that pressure and to not settle, I think, takes a lot of courage. There's a lot of courage. but I can only imagine the amount of peace and love and joy and abundance on the other side of that curse. So I really acknowledge you for leaning into that, making that decision, and also using your voice to share this wisdom with other people. So congrats on everything there. This question is called the three truths question. Imagine it's a hypothetical question and scenario. Imagine it's your last day on Earth many years away. and you get to live as long as you want to live and you get to create the life of your dreams. Everything you want to do, it happens. But for whatever reason, in this hypothetical scenario, all of your message has been erased or it goes to some other place. So your book is no longer available, the content you've created online is gone. So no one has access to your information anymore, your content. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. This is all we would have of your information, your content, are three lessons. I call it three truths. What would you say would be these three truths, what you'd share with people from the lessons you've learned in your life?
Don't wait until you get your dream job, or you meet your dream person, or you graduate with that degree, or you travel places you wanna travel. Choose Joy Now, because if not, you'll run out of time. if you're waiting to reach a milestone to think you're going to achieve it.
Choose joy. Second one?
The closed doors in your life are just as important as the open doors. So I would say embrace the closed doors because they're redirecting you elsewhere and take that redirection as a sign, as a positive sign.
And the third truth?
You're going to hear your name spoken very early on. You may graduate from kindergarten and they may call your name. You may graduate from middle school or high school, they may call your name. I want, I don't want that to be the last time you hear your name called for achieving something in your life. So I want you to walk into rooms that are too big for you.
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 her?
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, because it's so easy. It's easy to point the finger. 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 you're in the relationship with, you start to do this assessment and say, okay, what's really the problem? Have I not been communicative enough? Have I not set my expectations? Have I been too harsh? You gotta 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.
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.
Yeah.
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 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? It 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. You know, 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.
Can't.
I can hope.
Hope.
I can have a range of what I think people might listen to. Right.
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.
Right.
I would argue that's unrealistic because it's out of your control. 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. You know, I want this person to love me in a certain way. I want this person to 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. You just 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.
Right.
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 gonna 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. 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. 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.
Mm-.
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 I, 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. Yeah. In those tough, challenging moments when someone's like, you don't support me, you're not doing whatever they're saying.
Yeah.
It's tough to do that. Oh, 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, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really, I use that as a prompt 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?
Ooh, man.
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.
It's so tough.
It is.
Why does love trap us? Because I'm speaking for myself.
Yeah.
Cause I don't want to 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, 10 years ago, the day I got married. You hear these things and you're like, why do we stay? Why is this so hard for us, this trap of love? Why don't we get out of it sooner?
I mean, 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, you know, this dynamic is no longer, you know, 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, you know, 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 we serve. 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, 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. 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. We only live this life once. I'm a Christian, I believe in heaven, I believe in that. But I also believe that 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? Am I doing the things that bring me joy, bring me peace? or am I allowing 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. 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 gonna 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. Do the work. The other thing I want to hit is we 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.
Right.
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, you know, 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.
Right.
And communicating about that.
And communicating those areas that I can't. to see if it's possible we can set our expectations together.
The biggest challenge you'll find is when you communicate those things out of expectation or anger or frustration, the other person is probably not gonna be able to receive it. If you're already making someone wrong for what they're doing or not doing, it's very challenging to have an adult conversation.
Bro.
And this is something I've been there before. I've done that and I've received it. Yes. And it's challenging to do, but when you come from a place of 100% responsibility, accountability, and figuring why is this triggering me? Why is this really affecting me?
Dude, dude.
Then you can come from a calmer place of like, okay, I didn't like this, but I don't need to make you wrong for this in this moment, because we can talk about it, come up with an agreement that then moving forward, we can either live up to or not, and then we can make a decision if this frustrates Correct.
I mean, it's challenging, but it's good work. And for me, you know, that's, you talk about flaws, like that's an area that I have been, you know, outside of identifying what my needs are and being okay to admit those needs. One of the flaws, man, is that, you know, I have a really strong sense of right and wrong.
And if someone's not doing that, according.
To me, that's wrong.
Right, right, right. So, so if some may have, right, dude, I'm like, that's wrong. So when Megan and I have had moments of disagreement, I have at times mishandled it completely. 'Cause I have in my mind made the decision that on that particular thing that she may have done that I didn't like, she's wrong.
For you.
For me. But no, no, no. For me came as I evolved and as I grew, initially it was like, no, that's wrong.
Yeah.
Wrong in the world. Not just wrong for the moment. Wrong in the world. So here's the problem with that. The problem is when I make the decision and judge her action as wrong, the moment I bring it up, I bring it up in a way of attack. And anyone when they feel attacked, they're gonna get defensive.
Defensive. You can't do that in a relationship.
You can't do it. But it happens all the time.
It does, man.
And dude, what would happen is I would get on my self-righteous, Soapbox.
I can't believe we did this.
There you go.
What were you thinking?
There you go. Judgment.
What you gonna say? Oh, you're right, Devon. I'm a bad person. Everything you say is truth.
Right? No, dude, listen. I learned the hard way. What that did was it pushed her further away. It doesn't mean that the point of what I was bringing up, whatever we were dealing with, didn't have merit. Didn't mean that. It just meant that the way I went about it was wrong, and my intent was not being realized because I came at it from judgment and I'm right and you're wrong and da-da-da-da. So as I bump my head, I realize, oh, got it. The way I see the world is the way I see the world. It's not exactly how the world may be. So when I use how I see the world, as the way that she has to see the world. I am the one with the problem. Because I've got to understand and take into account the two different perspectives. So what I had to learn to do is express it from here. My love. When this happened, here's how it made me feel. Here's what's my takeaway. Is that the right way to think about it? So instead of doing like this, I had to do like this. Oh, yeah, when you said that, I felt this way about that. You know, man, how can we, you know, and that approach, bro, that approach is what then brings the communication.
Right. Then she has to be contributing in a more supportive way.
And also just talk it through, right? Because it's not a pointing the finger. I'm not pointing the finger at her. You know, she's not pointing the finger at me. We're actually talking about it. So she'll say, hey, you know, There are certain things that you do that make me feel this way. I was like, oh, okay. Now, here's another hard truth. There's some situations I'm like, I'm not responsible for those feelings.
Right. Doesn't mean you have to change who you are.
No, I love you. I understand what you're saying. And you know I love you.
Period.
I understand you feel a certain way about certain things. That's not my responsibility. So the same way that I feel about certain things, you're like, Hey, that's not my responsibility, right?
Yeah.
I still got to go do my work. I still have to go on my journey, and I still have to continue to get to that place of peace and healing and contentment inside the journey, if that makes sense.
On a scale of 1 to 10.
Yeah.
Of jealousy. 10 being extremely jealous human being, one being not jealous at all. Where would you say you lie in.
In life or, like, relationship?
In relationship.
Oh, man, I'm not jealous. It's like a one for me.
Did you ever used to be jealous in relationships?
Never. And I'll tell you why. Because I love me.
Okay?
So I'm like, yo, listen, I ain't jealous of no other dude.
I ain't.
I'm not. And then the reality is, if any woman that I was with found, you know, for whatever, more comfort or, you know, was like, hey, I want to go over there and, experienced that person, God bless you. God bless you. We're not the right fit then. Not the right fit. And if I was a jealous person, I couldn't be married to my wife. You know, my wife is one of the most successful, I mean, first of all, she's beautiful, but she's also one of the most successful, you know, women, you know, actors in Hollywood, you know, she's an icon, she's known around the world, you know, I mean, she's got man, she's got men, you know, I mean, literally. you know, and men all around the world, you know, desire her and would probably do anything for her. And that's who she was before we got married. So if I was the jealous type, oh, at work, I couldn't, I'd be miserable. Miserable. Miserable, 'cause right now she's in, you know, New York on a TV show. I'm here in LA. You gotta have trust. And you gotta have trust, right?
So if I'm a jealous man, oh.
Man, I, what is jealousy saying about us? Insecurity, massive insecurity. I don't feel safe with me so I don't feel safe with you.
What do you mean I don't feel safe with me?
Meaning, if I am secure with who I am and I feel good being alone, right? I feel safe in my isolation, I feel safe in my loneliness or periods of time when I'm by myself. Then I trust that you're going to feel safe and you're going to honor whatever needs to happen. But if I don't feel safe like I don't really like being alone much I don't really like being by myself, then you don't feel it. What are you doing?
What's the problem?
What's happening? So, that insecurity and not feeling safe with self, you transfer onto the other person. Because if you're content with your personal time, you tend to be more content when others have personal time independent of you. You're not worried. You're not worried. And then also one of the things that could happen is that you got burned in the past. Someone did you wrong, they violated your trust, and so fear has crept in. and so, that fear is driving your jealousy. You know, I'm afraid that what happened before is going to happen again. And so, as a result, I'm transferring that previous pain onto my present situation. And that's always a recipe for disaster, right? Because the person you're dating is not the person you dated.
You can't expect them to repeat the same thing.
Exactly, now but here's the other thing because life is a mirror, right? And whatever we put out we get back. If you keep putting that out, if you put it out on the last situation, this person you're dating may not be a cheater at all. But if you don't trust them and you keep getting mad at them.
You're gonna push them away, they're gonna wanna cheat.
It's like, you know, again, everyone still has to be the keeper.
I think it's okay, yeah.
Right, but that energy that you're putting out is sometimes the energy you get back, even from somebody who may not be predisposed to do those sort of things.
Not saying it's your fault that someone breaks out their integrity.
Correct.
But you might have influenced it in a way.
Correct. And so, the person that's jealous has to one, get control of that security and two, get control of that fear. And also say, you know what? Listen, if that person I'm dating is foolish enough to step out on me That's on them? That is on them.
Can you talk to me the difference between charisma and narcissism? And how can you spot when someone is actually warm and caring and charismatic versus someone who uses the skills or the tools of charisma in their narcissistic approach towards manipulating, controlling, and getting what they want in life?
So this is my biggest fear with this book.
This is my single biggest fear.
Was an issue for me when I.
First started writing it.
Is I'll be honest, you can use.
This book for manipulation. Yeah, of course.
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