Love Life w/ Matthew Hussey

Are there things in your life that should be seasonal threats that have become permanent threats? And is there something you can do to address that?

At the end of the day, you.

Have to find a way to not just work your life, but to love your life.

Love needs space, and you'll find the right person faster if you learn to say no to the wrong person quicker. When you ask a parent, why do you love your child? They'll be like, 'Cause they're mine. Well, what if you imagine someone saying to you, why do you love yourself?

What is up?

Okay, you guys are going to be so happy this is about to be an actual factual podcast episode. Okay. I've been, you know, surviving power moving, and now I'm feeling like I'm back in the saddle, and I'm super, super excited. Thank you so much for your support. Power moves has been on the New York Times best sellers list for three weeks, which is insane. Actually, it's pretty crazy to make it.

To make it on the-- it's crazy. It's God.

But at the end of the day, like I'm balancing my excitement with the reality that like in the grand scheme of things, you know, there are tons of incredible books that never make the list. And every book that's on the list isn't necessarily something that gives glory to God. And yet I'm really grateful for what God is showing me about his faithfulness. You know, I tried-- I did everything that I knew to do and tried new things as it related to launching the book. But the idea of even getting behind it, even though I had some insecurities about the interpretation and translation of the book, was really a testing of my own faith. For me, obedience wasn't necessarily writing the book. Obedience was pushing the book, telling people about the book, advocating for the message of the book, and trusting that because it came from God, that it would resonate in the lives of other people. And I'm just blown away by how God has affirmed and positioned the message of this book to do well. So thank you for your support. Outside of that, I'm still very, very tired. So I went from being on tour, like I got home from LA on a Wednesday and literally Thursday, six o'clock, I'm taking kids to school. So I am ready for school to come to an end. This is the last week of school. By the time you're listening to this, I will be on summer break with my kiddos, which makes me excited because I need a few mornings of sleeping in, because getting in right into the hustle and bustle was a little hard. But I am grateful. I'm tired. I'm happy. I'm looking forward to summer. I am working on some personal development that I'm really excited about, but not quite ready to share. And I'm just getting lots of confirmation assistant: 34:00:00 this is my happy face. And if you're not watching, then you can't see it. But I have a happy face and I'm excited about it. Let me mind your business. What have you been up to? That is the real question. If you want me to mind your business, visit podcast@womanevolve.com, send me a question. I like it when you send videos. I want to hear your voice. I like to see your face. But some of y'all want me to mind your business without other people minding your business, which I feel on a cell Mulgular level. So drop me a line and send me an email so that I can mind your business. I will not mention your name unless you tell me it's okay to mention your name. So I'm going to skip past that part and dive right into the question. It says, my question is, how do I navigate getting through distractions? Distractions that are of importance. Like you said, January came through just acting a fool. I'm trying to balance school, growing my relationship with God, making time for myself, medical issues, trying to start my mentoring program for young girls in my community. I know I can do it all. And girl, I'm not trying. I know I can't do it all. And girl, I'm not trying to, but all of these things are so very important. Not to mention my son is incarcerated and sentenced to eight and a half years of prison the other day. I find myself pouring into him to prepare him for his journey because it is his, but he depletes me emotionally sometimes. And I feel bad when I don't answer calls. I'm trying to stay focused here. My grandkids feel neglected because there just isn't enough time in a day. And I try so hard not to spread myself thin, but when I try to focus on prayer, school, work, et cetera, I find myself drifting. I need to stay on task. What advice can you give your big sis? Because I'm trying to-- I'm trying so very hard to not just ball up under these covers and just hide from everything.

Girl, I say ball up under the covers.

Sorry about you. I know that's not what you were looking for, but here I am telling you sometimes-- I literally-- y'all thought I was joking a couple weeks ago. I recorded the intro and the outro for the podcast from underneath my blanket. I took my iPhone, I put it as close to my mouth as possible, and I said, what's up? What's up? It's your girl, S.J.R. I needed to ball up underneath the blanket. Everything is better after you've taken a nap. It just-- I can't explain it. Something happens when your eyes are closed and your brain is not working. It's restorative. The world shuts off. You're cozy in your blanket, and then you can wake up and it qualifies what's really important. Many of us are overwhelmed by our many responsibilities. I will say, I just opened the podcast saying I was tired. But what I knew for sure is that launching the book would be a season. Are there things in your life that should be seasonal threats that have become permanent threats? And is there something you can do to address that? So when I look at your question, I see all of these things that are important to you. You're balancing school, you're growing your relationship with God, making time for your medical issues, starting a mentoring program. I am wondering if you can give yourself permission to do all of the things, but not all of the things need to be done right now each day. So if you are able to organize your life and say, you know what, on Saturdays, on Mondays, on Tuesdays, I'm gonna take half a day and I'm going to rest. I'm gonna take all day if I can. I don't know what you're capable of doing in your schedule. And that will be the day that is specifically for me. It's non-negotiable. I will not debate about it. That is a time in which I will do whatever I wanna do or don't wanna do. Can we work on the mentoring program on Tuesday?

Can we pick that up each day? A lot of times we have many.

Tasks that we want to complete, and we're overwhelmed by the amount of tasks that we want to complete, so overwhelmed that we're not actually doing anything to complete the task. But I find peace and rest in saying, I did one thing today. I did something today that's going to get me one step closer to that goal. The pressure to ideate and manifest in the same time frame can be very challenging. But if you can allow yourself to ideate and then activate what you're ideating on into to sequence, then eventually you know that the outcome has to be fruit. And so I would give I would challenge you to take the time to really put your goals and objectives into bite sized pieces so that you're not trying to check the big boxes of your goals, but a small box each day that you know will get you one step closer to ultimate completion while also recognizing that you do need to take the time to rest. I have an older son, I spend a lot of time, of course, with the girls, because I'm day to day in their life homeschooling, teaching, carpooling, all of the things. But for my son who's 21, I don't get to spend as much time with him. And I think that it weighs on him and it weighs on me. And so I told him, can we plan a monthly date? Like we're going to have our monthly date in which we do whatever it is that we want to do together.

Is there something that you can do.

With your grandkids that's similar? On Saturdays, we will have grandma time, granny time, whatever they call you once.

A month, every other week. And then that way you have a schedule.

They have consistency. They know what to look forward to instead of you trying to cram them into your already busy schedule. and then having to let them down or disappoint. And take everything to the Lord in prayer.

Amen.

That's what I have for you. Listen, trying to do all of the things can be very hard. And it's not always easy when we feel like not only am I trying to accomplish a lot of things for my life and my destiny, but there's also the reality that I have personal goals and objectives that I would like to see happen in my life as well. When we begin to talk about the toll and strain of constantly being pulled on, I think it is also important that we mention the real necessity for us to have relationships that pour into us. When we have relationships where we are not just the ones doing the depositing, but we are also the ones who are receiving deposits, it helps us to also have a give and take reciprocity nature of our lives. And that is what I believe many of us We are often looking to pour, but we haven't identified things that allow us to feel restored. And so I would also challenge you to consider what is restorative for me? What are some things that allow me to have my cup refilled and refueled? For me, alone time, I'm an introvert, going to sleep, as I have mentioned, quality time with my husband, being able to get in the car and go somewhere by myself and do things on my own is really helpful for me as well. I love reading. Reading is super important to me. And so here's the thing. At the end of the day, you have to find a way to not just work your life, but to love your life. And when you find a way to love your life, even the things that are demanding, they don't completely deplete you because you have elements in your life that you love. And so I want you to find a way to love your life. I preached a message at a conference called Love youe Life. It's on YouTube.

It might bless you.

You should check it out. Evolve. So before I started talking about power moves on this podcast, I was having some very interesting conversations with people who were expanding my perspective on what it means to be in a healthy relationship with, of course, for me, because of my faith to be in a healthy relationship with God, but to follow that commandment to love God, to love my neighbor as I love myself, that being the ultimate commandment. And I had a conversation, May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which I believe is an unique opportunity for us to discover ways for us to love ourselves by being honest with ourselves about where we are in our mental health journey. What has changed? What support do we need? What help do we need? I'm even thinking about the question that I just answered. And it's one thing to know that you have all of these chores, but I think to ask yourself on a deeper level, like, how are the demands of my life affecting my mental health? You know, there's one thing to ball up in the corner and take a minute for a break. There's another aspect active balling up in a corner because you're functionally depressed or the anxiety is so overwhelming that it's leaving you frozen. And so I do think going that step further and asking yourself, like, okay, because if this is a source of anxiety, if it's calling me, causing me depression, if my self-esteem is being targeted as a result of me not being able to do all of these things, then my need to address it and correct it has less to do with how do I do, how do I balance all the things better. But also, how do I take care of myself in the midst of it all? I had an interesting conversation with a man named Matthew Hussey. Matthew Hussey is an author. He has been deemed a relationship expert. He has this new book. It's called love life. Listen, are you ready for the subtitle?

It's love life.

How to raise your standards, find your person and live happily.

No.

Matter what. So I love this book because it was that well, I will say this. I love the title of the book because it was such a big promise, a huge promise that I wanted to understand, like, how are we going to do all of these things? How are we going to love our life, raise our standards, find our person and live happily no matter what? It's that no matter what part for me, because very much so sometimes the idea of us living happily ever after no matter what feels like impossible. If life doesn't go the way that I want it to go, how can I do that? So our theme for May is surrender to believing your story. And I don't think there is any better way for us to talk about surrendering to believing our story than to grapple with the reality that oftentimes it feels like the no matter what part of our lives is the place where we get stuck. But I am encouraged by this conversation that I had with Matthew Hussey, and I cannot wait to share it with with you. So sit back, relax, and get ready to take some tools away about what it means to show up in life in a way that makes you feel powerful and less afraid. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I had my conversation with Matthew. Matthew is a New York Times bestselling author, a speaker and coach specializing in confidence and relational intelligence. His YouTube channel is number one the world for love life advice with over a half a billion views. He writes a weekly newsletter and is the host of the podcast love life with Matthew Hussey. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect when we sat down to have this conversation, considering his book makes such a big promise. But I believe that he's got some incredible tools that are going to help shift our perspective on what it means to show up in life in a way that makes it feel powerful and capable of standing up to whatever comes our way. So I hope you enjoy it. Let's get into it.

ASHLEY BLAIRE WALKER: Matthew, I have to ask you.

Well, no.

First of all, let me tell you, I know a lot of incredible, beautiful, educated, single women, and they are swimming in the dating pool. They have told me that there's a little bit of urine in the dating pool. They said, it's not safe out here, Matthew. And I'm trying to figure out, what am I to say? Tell my girls who are out here struggling.

What are they struggling with?

They say that their selection is not great, that often times they find men who say they want to be in relationships, but they also want to build.

Their careers, and they don't feel like.

They can do both at the same time. So they put them kind of on the back burner while they're building their careers in their lives, and they don't mind partnering to build a life together and to help them achieve their dreams, just like they don't mind having support in their dreams as well. But it just seems like like there's a disconnect in desire.

Yeah, well, I think firstly, I want to acknowledge everyone who's feeling that because it is hard out there. Like it's finding love is not easy. It is for, you know, you're going out there and you're experiencing people who have misaligned intentions. They don't want what you want so much of the time. It's It's hard to feel our friends are pairing off and we're the one being left behind. It is hard to feel like there's this thing that we want more than anything else in the world, that we want love and that we somehow have to hide how badly we want it because it feels shameful to want it that badly, or it feels like we're desperate, or it's embarrassing. It is hard out there. And unlike other areas of our life where we can control a lot, you know, if we want to, If we want to get in better shape, we can change our diet and we can work out every day. And our shape will change. We may not get the ideal shape we've always wanted, but for sure, our body will change. In our love life, we can go on a date every day for the next six months and still not find love at the end of it. That is a really difficult thing for us to feel that out of control over something that we feel is so fundamental to our happiness. So I want to acknowledge how hard it is out there for people and that you're not alone if you're feeling that you are in really, really great company. So if we start from a basis of going, yeah, finding love is very often hard, that there's nothing wrong with us if we're finding it hard, it just is hard. Then we can start to say, well, okay, how might we do love better if we were being really smart about it? And I think to your point that you made, the kinds of guys that are not prioritizing you. They're putting their career first. They're saying they're not ready for a commitment. What we have to start getting really good at is deciding what is important to us. Because if we say what's important to me is someone who's super attractive and charismatic, and has a great job and is tall and is like, whatever it may be, when we start listing these things, if someone comes along who doesn't value us, but they tick all of those boxes, we'll keep going because we've told ourselves that they're what we're looking for.

Wow.

If instead we say, what I really want is someone who sees me as their equal, someone who is kind, someone who is loyal, and someone who is ready for the same things that I am ready for. Then it doesn't matter how hot, sexy, charismatic, or accomplished anyone is. If they don't pass that test of being those fundamental things, we're not interested in giving them another day of our life. And what I see consistently is people giving too much of their time and energy to people who have already proven themselves to be bad bets. That's the part that has to stop, because if we stop doing that, it's astonishing, Sarah, how much time we will get back. All of a sudden, we'll find ourselves with an abundance of time to go out there and meet people. And I want to tell people, your love life is an area where you go slow to go fast. If you go fast and you're like, oh, but this person that is super eligible, they have all these characteristics that I really like. If that makes you go fast and try and get that person and invest time and energy, you're liable to waste two years of your life in an unhappy situationship where eventually you go to someone saying, how do I get this person to commit? They still won't commit. They still. Meanwhile, two years of your life has gone by. And I'm not someone who says the right person is around every corner. They're not. But let's say someone who could be right for you only comes along once a year. Well, in that moment when that person passes you by, you need space for that person. Love needs space.

Wow.

If when they show up, even if it comes along once a year, when they show up, if your head is in your phone looking for a text from someone who won't text you back, or if you're instead in converse, if they're in the coffee shop sitting next to you and you're in conversation with your friends about trying to get some guy to commit who won't commit ever. You're missing that moment. Love needs space and you'll find the right person faster if you learn to say no to the wrong person quicker.

Okay, so I already know that that is so many of my girls problems because when you talk about being very intentional about what you're looking for in a partner, not just who how you want them to show up in the world, but who you want them to be in their core. I think it does give us a more crystallized vision of who we are looking for to be a potential partner.

You've got a big book that I.

Have to say makes a big promise. It says love life. It's called love life. How to raise your standards, find your person, and live happily no matter what. Can you talk a little bit about how this even can happen when love is taking up so much space, or.

At least the desire for love has.

Taken up so much space as it relates to our confidence, our worth, and our value. How do we get to that no matter what part?

I'm so, so, so happy you asked that, because this, for me, is the most important promise of the book. I want this book to be a co-pilot for anybody looking for love. I wanted to help them find love faster and do love better. But my not-so-secret hidden motive for this book is to help people figure out how to be happy enough no matter what happens. And I say happy enough as an important choice of words. To me, happy is intimidating. and many of us can't identify with being blissfully happy when there are some crucial things in our life missing. But happy enough for many is a more achievable step to reach. And, and I had, I had a woman come to me. I have a, every year I have a very tiny group of people that I work with intensively over a year, no more than around 50 people. And one of the women in this group came to me and asked me a question. And remember, in this moment, she can ask me anything. She could ask me, Matt, how do I find love in the next 12 months? What could I do? How do I. She didn't ask that. She said, how do I kill the desire to find love? She said, I have wanted to find love so badly my whole life, and it has never happened for me. And if I can't kill this desire and it never happens, I'm going to be sad for the rest of my life. So can you help me get rid of the desire to find love? Not can you help me find love. Can you help me get rid of the desire to find love. And I wrote this book, not just for the optimist out there who's excited to find love. I wrote this book for her.

Wow.

Because I understand what it is when you're in such deep pain that you don't know that you'll ever be okay again. And, you know, one of the things I write about in the book, which I've never spoken about publicly before.

Is.

A huge period of my life that I'm only just emerging from in the last couple of years where I had really significant chronic physical pain and it showed up as pain in my head and my ear. It also showed up as loud ringing in my ears, tinnitus, and it ruined my life for a long time. more than I'd like to admit. And I didn't talk about it publicly because it was just too painful to even talk about. I couldn't talk about it without crying. I couldn't talk about it without, you know, feeling like I would break if I spoke about it. So I lived with this in silence while I was making videos and speaking on stage and, you know, doing everything that I do. And the only people that knew about it were my close friends and family. But it got so bad that, you know, I remember going to a therapist and saying, I'm just gonna live, I've made a decision that I'm just gonna live for other people now. I'm gonna live for my mom, you know, my parents, my brothers, my extended family, and all of my friends and my company, and I'm just gonna live for everyone else because I'm never gonna be happy again for as long as I have this pain, and I don't know how to make this pain go away. So I was saying to this therapist a version of what this woman was saying to me. And it was a problem because I didn't know how to make it go away. And so the tools that I put in this book, the tools that I used to find my happy enough, even with that pain, and that was everything to me because If I didn't do that, my life truly would have been ruined. And I think what's exciting about Happy Enough is that when you get to Happy Enough, you start to get your power back. From there, you can make a difference again. From there, you can create magic again. From there, you can start to create opportunities again, but you can't do that when you feel like your life is over or where you feel like your life is unsustainable the way it is today. So I want people to read this book and get to a point where they go, even though I may want to find love, and that's an admirable goal to have, and this book's gonna help them get there, I'm actually okay. I'm okay. And even if nothing changed in my life, I'll be okay. And when you get to that place, it is a superpower because that is what gives you the ability to say no to someone who is not on your path. And when you meet someone who is on your path, it gives you the ability to not suddenly become a different version of yourself trying to please them. but instead show up as an authentic version of yourself that's going to continue to attract them and deepen a relationship with them. So happy enough is your superpower, and happy enough is something you can get to today before you've ever met that person. And that's what I show people how to do.

I love that you're not just a coach for relational intelligence. You're called a relationship expert. Your YouTube channel just racks up millions upon billions of helping so many people navigate the dynamics of being in relationship with others. But you also talk about confidence a lot. And I believe that part of what many women experience when they are no longer confident in who they are, whether it's their appearance or their intellect or their age, is they begin to see themselves through the lens of a deficit. And when you see yourself through a lens of a deficit, it creates desperation. Can you talk a little bit about how the research Restoration of confidence allows for us to then position ourselves to not just look for love, but to be love in a way that allows us to show up in the world as someone who is healthy enough to be in partnership with ourselves and our friends and siblings and parents and whoever else, not just a partner.

ASHLEY BLAINE TYUS-IGAFASE I love that. I love the way you put it. we come to our confidence from a place of deficit. Because that's exactly right. We do the same with the way we are with regret. You know, when we've made mistakes or we have regrets, it's like we start our morning from a place of, I've got to compensate for a life that I've ruined or mistakes I've made or instead of starting from a place of building, something. It's worth defining what we mean by confidence. Because this is something I do in the book. I outline three levels of confidence. The first one being the surface. That's how we come across to other people, how we walk, talk, and act. The second one is the identity level of confidence. and that is, what are the things that are the sources of our confidence? So it could be our job, it could be the skills we've built in our life, it could be our friendship circle, it could be the money we've made. We all have confidence that comes from different places in our lives. And then the deepest level of confidence is much deeper than any of those things. It's the core. And the core is the relationship that you have with yourself. And as you said, the relationship we have with ourselves often is one that's built on this foundation of deficit, that I'm not good enough, I don't match up, or I'm only good enough when I'm being these things, which leads us to be people pleasers and people who are constantly trying to earn love from other people or constantly feeling like they need to look a certain way to be worthy of love. So that relationship with ourselves is one that is a very unhealthy one for most people. So how do we get out of this deficit mode that you're talking about? We have to start to love ourselves for very different reasons than the ones we think we need to love ourselves on. So if you ask most people, why do you love yourself? Or why should you love yourself? At first, they'll be stumped. They struggle to come up with reasons. Then they often start listing qualities. in themselves. They're like, oh, well, because I'm generous and I'm kind and I do a lot for my family and I am ambitious and I work hard. And I see all of those things as a giant problem because those things are the root of the deficit problem that you're speaking of. Because if you think that what makes me lovable is all of these great qualities, then you'll instantly start looking for the qualities you're not as a reason to not love yourself.

Wow.

Or on the days where you're not your great qualities, if you love yourself because you're kind and then you have a selfish day, you'll find it hard to love yourself on that day. So, so many of us are trying to love ourselves based on a feeling we'll get for ourselves if we can convince ourselves we are special. And I always found that to be a problem because A, there's always someone who's more special in those ways that could walk into the room. And that just invites comparison and me not feeling good enough. But B, I'm one in eight billion people. How special can I really feel? There's loads of amazing people in the world. If I try to convince myself I'm special, I'm very quickly going to focus on other people who are better looking, who are funnier, who are more successful, more talented, more of all of those things. So I believe that if we get, if we're to get out of deficit, we have to completely change the rules of how we come to love ourselves. I think we can dispense with the idea of trying to convince ourselves we are special all together and instead focus on one thing only, and that is that we are the human being that we are responsible for. Imagine for a moment that from the day you were born, you were given a human, and someone whispered in your ear, Hey, just so you know, You are going to volunteer for a lot of jobs in your life. But the one job you always will have, your number one job, is to take care of this human. It is to show up for this human, to nurture this human, to encourage this human, to stand up for them, to help them realize their potential. and to try and give them the best life they can possibly have. That's your job. Now, for a few years, someone else had the responsibility of doing that, right? We had a parent figure or a parent who took care of us and nurtured us into adulthood. They may or may not have done a good job, but their job was to keep us alive for a while. And then, It was us who took full custody back of this human. And from that point on, it was our job. Now, when you look at it through that lens, comparison becomes totally irrelevant. It's like saying to a parent, why do you love your child? When they answer that question, most parents aren't comparing their children to other children. When you ask a parent, why do you love your child? They will look at you like you are a crazy person. They will be like, what are you talking about? Because they are my child. Because they are mine. Well, what if you imagine someone saying to you, why do you love yourself? And you just looking at them like it is a crazy question? Like, what are you talking about? I am mine. I am my human. When you look at it through that lens, you no longer feel in deficit because you are no longer comparing yourself with anybody. Comparison is irrelevant. You cannot exchange your for another human. You only get one human. So your job is not to measure that human and judge them and see what they don't have. Your job is very simple. Do the best you can with this human as they are. How could you love this human into being the best possible version of who they are? Now there's no deficit. There's just making the best of the human that you have. And when you start thinking like that, and someone comes along who treats this human badly, you don't think, oh, but I really want to get this person. You think, no, this person's bad for my human.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This person doesn't treat my human well. This person makes my human unhappy. Let me get this person away from my human. That's how you start to think. loving yourself is not a feeling. It is an action. It is an approach. It is a job. You don't need to feel love for yourself. You need to love yourself like it's your job because it is. It's not that the cavalry isn't coming. It's that the cavalry is you. Wow.

I wish that I would have heard this about what, 22 years ago. I got pregnant as a teenager, and I think everything just clicked for me 10 years down the road. I was 23, 24 years old when I finally got to this space where I was like, I belong to me. I'm not just this teen girl who's trying to find someone who's going to make her feel better. I belong to me, and I'm going to take care of me, which I think was really important because I did not know that within just a couple of years, I would meet the man that I'm married to now, my incredible husband. And I want to talk a little bit about not just seeking love, but once you're finally in love and recognize that being in love with a person is not necessarily the fairy tale that we have been sold since we were younger children or that we see in rom-coms, but love as an action when it relates to loving someone else requires humility. and growth and patience. Can we talk a little bit about the journey of learning to love someone, especially after you've come to a space where you've like had to protect yourself, now you're having to trust someone else.

With who you are.

ASHLEY BLAIRE THOMPSON oh, that's the hard part, right? It's, you know, you can, at a certain point, you have to, Grow by experiencing life at the frontier between you and another person. Not all growth can just be experienced in a room on our own. It has to be tested. That's what makes us robust. Robustness is not us sitting in a room on our own. Robustness is going out to meet the world. and all of the collisions and the tensions and the difficulties that come from trying to take up the same space as another person and navigate that together. And of course, the right relationship, the one that works, is the one where there's a compatibility to the way that the two of you take up space together. It's the one where you can show who you are and that person has an acceptance of that, and they can show who they are and you have an acceptance of that. And neither of you are perfect. You both have your challenges and no one comes to a relationship fully healed. I don't care who they are. Everyone comes with their stuff. But how well do you navigate your imperfections together? How well do you navigate your challenges together? You know, there are certain people in this world whose problems we don't relate to or we have zero patience for. And if that's the case, we're not the right person for them. But the right person is someone who can show up vulnerably as themselves, and we're like, I'm in for this. I believe the right person is the person who we show up to, and they're good at handling us. We spend so much time, I think, in relationships asking who's right, who's wrong, instead of going, Who's good at handling me? And who am I good at handling? That, to me, is one of the ultimate tests of compatibility. And that's not me giving, I'm not giving a pass to the worst kinds of behavior because it's incumbent on all of us to show up to the relationship as the best version of our authentic selves.

Right?

If I'm like, It's authentic for me to freeze you out for a week after an argument, that's unfair to expect someone to be okay with that. There's a quote that is often attributed to Marilyn Monroe that says, if you don't accept me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best. I'm not sure I agree with that quote. If your worst is abusive, Right. It's not incumbent on me to accept that so that I get your best. That's a mandate for an abusive relationship. But if we show up authentically as ourselves with, you know, our pain and our insecurities and the things that we're trying to work on, and we're also taking ownership of them, but we're also kind of laying it bare, I think the right relationship is is the one where someone sees all of that and they see the journey we're on, and they're like, I'm in for that. You know, I'll sign up for that. That to me is the right person for us.

Matthew, I know that there are going to be so many people who are just blown away by the aha moments. What I love so much about your content and the way that you present it is that it feels reachable. And the thing about love and growth and confidence and healing It all feels very out of reach, but here you are giving us tools that feel very much so in hand. At what point in your life did you realize that you had a gift that could help other people do the things that felt impossible?

ASHLEY BLAINE KASHABA JENKINS: oh, I think I knew at 19 I had something. But let me bring some-- let me bring that down to earth. I knew at 19 I had something, right? I knew that there was a way that I communicated that seemed to reach people on some level. I also made the fatal mistake of thinking that I needed to look like I knew more than I did. And I look back now and I cringe at how much I felt like I had to know at an age where I didn't really know it. and I wish I had, you know, someone asked me recently, what would you go back and tell, like, you know, yourself, your younger self, if you could go back? And I was like, you know what? I'd tell him. I'd be. I'd say your energy and. And your heart and the. The way you just are with people is healing all on its own.

Wow.

You don't need to have all the answers on top of that. If you just keep showing up with that energy and that intention. that will be enough. And you can catch up on all of the life experience as you go. But you don't need to know it all. You don't need to be able to relate to every situation already. Just be curious and keep bringing this beautiful energy and you'll be fine. Instead, what I did was I tried to know too much and talk like I knew more than I did. And I think for many years that became a prison for me where I felt like I couldn't be exactly who I was and I couldn't be vulnerable with my own challenges. And the problem when you can't be vulnerable about your own challenges is it gets harder to heal them because you're trying to grow in private away from everybody instead of with the support of everybody and in a way that just feels congruent with who you are and where you really are. So it's always why it breaks my heart. You know, when you see on Instagram, like a 12-year-old motivational speaker and they're going on a rant about something and they're cute and everything they're saying makes sense, but my heart breaks for that kid because I'm like, somewhere in your mind, you got it into your head that you need to know it all already. And that's a massive trap. And I think at any age, if we can get out of that and get back into curiosity, that's where the fun is.

Oh, goodness. Okay, so I know before we close out that there are so many people who are listening, and they have something that they feel like is a gift, but they have all of these other things that they say, you know what? I don't know this. I don't know that. So maybe this gift doesn't have as much value. What I you saying is that gift in itself and its raw form without any of the jazz or whatever else you see from other people is enough for you to share with the world and to make the world a better place. What would you say to them to make them finally just maybe jumpstart their journey of owning their gift and releasing it into the world? Well.

There's a writer called William Zinser who wrote a very famous book on writing. It's called On Writing well. And it was a book aimed at nonfiction writers. And I always remember him writing in this book about how if you have a writer that considers, let's say, writing about the city of Tokyo, they may not do it because they're thinking, well, Tokyo has been written about a thousand times. What do I have to add to the travel culture conversation around Tokyo? And he said, we need to hear your version of Tokyo. It's your voice that's needed. It's not that we need just another essay on Tokyo. We your lens on Tokyo because you're the only one who can give that. And I would encourage anyone out there listening to think about that in your journey that it's not about whether you're better or worse than anybody else. It's that only you can provide your specific lens. Only you can write about life. in whatever form you're doing it, in whatever way you're trying to create things and make things and do things, only you can write about life the way that you've lived it and with your story. And that's the story that the world needs to hear. They don't need to hear a poor version of someone else's story. They need to hear an authentic version of yours. And if your intention is truth, then you don't need to worry about being right or wrong. Like, I know every week when I release a video, I'm always gonna miss something. I'm always gonna, you know, forget a certain caveat or there's gonna be some side of life I haven't seen, and someone is gonna point out that my video is really great for these people, but very glib when it comes to this type of situation. That's natural. If my intention is to help people and it's to just find truth and to express it as best I can, then I don't even worry about the criticism, really, because I don't even think of it as criticism. I think, oh, you've helped me get a little closer to truth next week.

Yeah.

Something you've said. is going to shape and sculpt my answer and the way I'm saying it into something that's even better next week. Thank you for getting me closer to truth and thank you for helping me help more people by sharing with me that there was something I missed. If my intention is being right, or if my intention is looking smart, or if my intention is impressing everyone, then I'm in trouble. But if my intention is helping and getting closer to truth, then I'm safe no matter what happens. Because every week I can get a little closer to that. And I think everyone can take that on board for themselves. So I would say, know that your voice is what's needed because you're the only one who can express the exact story and the learnings that you've had in your life that are particular to you. and base your intentions in things that are bulletproof, not in things that can be shattered at the first sign of resistance or criticism.

Matthew, thank you so much. Not just for your generosity in time and the thoughtfulness in your responses, but for your service to the world and to humanity. No doubt in my mind. that so many people are better and more in love with themselves and with the world around them because of your Yes. So thank you very much for doing this podcast with me.

Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I really appreciate it. And your questions are really-- like, you nail it with your questions. You're very insightful, and you're an amazing listener. And it's like you-- it's fun watching you listen, and then, like, just come up with like the perfect next question based on what's just been said. You're a very present interviewer and host, which is not all that common. So I really appreciate it and I really respect and admire the way you're coming at your work. And for anyone out there who wants a copy of the book, it's called Love Life. It's a How to raise your standards, find your person, and live happily no matter what. And if you wanna grab a copy, you can do so over at lovelifobook.com, which is actually really cool because you can still get it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or wherever you wanna get your books. But if you come to that site and you take your receipt number, there's a place where you can input that receipt number and you'll get a ticket to an event I'm doing on May 4th called Find youd Person, which is a worldwide virtual event that I'm doing as an exclusive for buyers of the book. And the book is going to give you all of the ideas and the awareness and the teachings, and then the event is going to put you on the path if finding love and being happy no matter what is what you want. So it's going to be really fun. And that, like I said, that ticket is free for anyone who gets a copy of the book and you you can see all of that at www.lovelifefbook.com.

Oh, beautiful. Okay, I want to make sure we check it out. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

No worries. Take care.

Okay, before we head out, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. And keeping with just finding a way to love your life no matter what, I want to shout out this woman. We could call her Rescue Eve. We could call this woman Hell Mary, if you don't know what that means, you got to go back, scroll back to 2018 and listen to one of podcasts, because let me tell you, it's a whole thing. But let me tell you, this 30-year-old woman is going viral for sharing that she took a business class upgrade for herself after breaking up with her boyfriend on a trip and leaving him and his son in economy. You can call it petty, or you can call it self-care. She seemed like my kind of girl because we're no longer traveling together. We broke up on the trip. We broke it was around. It was supposed to be a round trip relationship. When you made it a one-way relationship, it changed my travel plans. Baby girl had a chance for an upgrade. First of all, and let me tell you about the God that I serve. Just when you think you're being downgraded, he says, not yet. I'm going to upgrade you. And that is the God that I serve. Listen, I am so sorry for whatever caused this breakup. Much healing and love to all those involved. But, baby girl, I'm rocking with you. People are not agreeing. Like, she shouldn't have left the stepson or, you know, the bonus baby. He broke up with me. I need space. Okay? Yeah, I don't know. I just-- what do you think? Email me, podcast@womaninvolved.com. I believe this woman deserves a floaty. If ever there was a woman who deserved a floaty, actually scratch that. I believe she deserves a Hail Mary. You tell me, though. Are you confused? So am I. It doesn't matter. Rescue me, Hail Mary. You tell me which one we're doing. I cannot wait to talk to you next week. I had a podcast batching day, and I talked to some incredible voices that I know are going to pour into us all June. So tell your friends about us. Tag them. Let them know that the woman evolution podcast is and we've got content that's going to help you grow and evolve into the best version of who you are, into everything that God has known you could be, and to live a life of power and humility. I cannot wait. God, thank you for carrying me through this season, for knowing what I would need when I would need it. Thank you for doing the same for those who are listening. I pray that you would open their hearts to the ways that you desire to show them love, healing and restoration. I pray that you would highlight in their mind the areas where they need breakthrough, a touch that only you can give. I pray that together we would collectively become hungry for more and more of your presence. And as a result, we would embody what it means to be in relationship with Jesus. Bless my friends. Bless their week. Keep us until we meet again in Jesus' name. Aiming.