These Charming Qualities Are Actually Major RED FLAGS

And then all of a sudden, she's in love with this man because she thinks she's the one that can change him. She is the one that can get all the beast part of him out and have this beautiful prince to come out. That's not healthy.

I have someone I am so excited to bring to you today. Her name is Marta.

Higareda.

She is an actor, a screenwriter, a producer, and an incredible friend. We talked for nearly two hours to my members about how to heal from past relationships, how to heal our inner child, how to be confident when we're on the road to love, especially if we feel like despite there being lots of great things in our life, there's something missing because we haven't found love. And what to do with the feelings of wanting a family, even though you haven't met your person yet, and how to plan for that. It is a truly inspiring interview from someone who has done so much inspiring work on herself and can bring it to you in one of the most eloquent ways I've ever seen. This is one of my favorite conversations I've ever had inside the Love Life Club, and I'm bringing you a portion.

Of it here today.

So, enjoy.

I present to you Marta Higareda. Of course, as we go through life, there are events and experiences that we go through that Whether we started with confidence or not, they can really knock our confidence. They can take us to a very dark place. They can make us question our worth. They can make us newly afraid to go out into the world, whether it's to put ourselves out there for jobs or whether it's to meet a partner. We almost feel like we're now a different version of ourselves going into the world.

Yeah.

And one of the things that I know I've been through for myself, but one of the things that I'm dealing with with people across the world all the time is people who have been through terrible heartbreak.

Yeah.

People who have been through toxic or abusive relationships. People who have been in a relationship with a narcissist and had to overcome that.

I'm all of the above.

Well, that's really helpful because I I wanna talk to you. One of the big themes of today's session with you is healing habits after heartbreak, after toxic or abusive relationships, after narcissistic relationships. And I'd love to know at your darkest moments, what the journey looked like for you to come back again to be the person that you are today. So if you could rewind back to that mindset, what were some of the most helpful things you did for yourself in that time?

I feel like, you know, it's interesting because I do write and I've been doing a lot of romantic comedies. I'm known in Latin America for being kind of like the queen of romantic comedies. And I realized that I was doing all these movies, Matt, but I was not fulfilled in love. that I would find myself relationship after relationship, you know, heartbroken. And I was the common denominator in all of these relationships, right? Whether it was an okay relationship or a toxic relationship or with a narcissist or with... I got to a point for me that I was just with myself crying and remember I remember I had this conversation with myself in which I said, how come I don't know what is this thing about love? Like, what is this thing about love? I consider myself a good person. I consider myself, you know, I mean, I work out, I take care of myself. I think I'm smart in some ways, maybe in love, I wasn't. But, you know, I consider myself a good human being with good values. why is it that I am not getting it? Like, where's the memo that nobody gave me? And then I realized, oh, it has a lot to do with my own wounds. I was attracting partners in my life that will complement me. And the reason why I'm using that word, the complement me, is because you complete me type of, you know, idea is because a lot of romantic movies. They teach you all the fun part of how to fall in love, but they don't tell you what happens after the happily ever after. And we grew up, and I love Disney movies. There's something that you and I and Audrey, we all enjoy going to Disneyland. We were actually talking to your mom right before this about going to Disneyland. And I love it. There's certain princess stories that I think could be very harmful to a woman if you believe that that is your path and that you're going to follow, let's say, the beauty and the beast, right? So talking about the narcissistic relationship I was in. In the beauty and the beast, she falls in love with a beast. that treats her horrible, that locks her up in his castle. And then when she's trying to run away, she gets attacked by a pack of wolves and then the beast defends her. And then all of a sudden she's in love with this man because she thinks she's the one that can change him. That she is the one that can get all the beast part of him out and have this beautiful prince to come out. That's not healthy, in my opinion. This is my opinion, by the way.

We were speaking to our mutual friend, Tom Billyou, and he was saying how many of the stories of romantic love around women involve taking a guy who's kind of a really difficult He's horrible to everybody. He's not a nice person to be around, but eventually because of some unique formula that she applies, because of the key that she holds, she is able to get a treatment from him that other people don't get.

So then that makes her feel special, because she's the one that's going to finally change this man. and make him commit or make him quit drinking or make him whatever is the story. But then what happens to me is that then you're placing your value onto another person. If I change this man, then therefore I am enough. And it all has to do, I think, for me, and this is again, my personal experience, it has to do with you feeling enough. or not. So I was in all of these relationships, in different kinds of relationships, coming into them from a wounded place. I had not healed the most important part of me, which is my relationship with myself and my self-love.

What would happen back then when you would come across somebody who had already done that work on themselves? Maybe they had healed a lot of parts of themselves. They were approaching relationships from a healthy way.

Yeah.

Was your experience that you weren't attracted to them? Did you not even see them? Were they not even like, did they not even stand out to you?

Yeah.

Like what would you say your experience of people like that was?

So sometimes I wouldn't even see them. Like, Lewis and I have had this conversation. We say to each other, if we had known each other three years ago, even three years ago, it's not that long ago, we probably wouldn't have seen each other. We actually went to the same salsa places to dance salsa because we both like it. And we never saw each other, which is really weird because we know the musicians, we know the people. It's the exact same place in LA, and we never saw each other. I'm sure we probably were there, but I just never saw him.

And for everyone who's wondering out there, Lewis is Lewis Howes. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. earlier, but we have an interview with Lewis inside the Love Life Club.

Oh, yes. Great interview.

If you haven't, this would make a great pairing to watch this one and then go and watch the Lewis one afterwards. So that's who we're talking about.

Lewis.

Lewis Howes.

Yes. So we say that to each other. We wouldn't have seen each other, literally. But sometimes I would meet a really kind, healthy, amazing man. and you know what would happen to me? I would feel it was boring. Ain't that interesting? And my mom would say, this is a great guy, you know, mom's third.

So she could see it.

She could see him because, you know, your friends and especially your mom and your dad, they love you deeply. If you have a very healthy family, they love you deeply. They want the best for you. The older I get, the more I realize my mom is right. More right than I thought, you know? And she used to say, but this is a great guy. I just don't feel the chemistry, mom. And that word chemistry is interesting and it can be tricky when you haven't healed. You have a tendency to attract the person that's going to create the most chemicals inside of you in order for your soul to heal. So you're going to be attracting, you know, if you don't feel enough yet, you're going to be attracting a person that somehow is going to make you feel not enough. and that is an amazing chemistry. You experience all these things. So if I was to see a great guy, I felt he was great to be my friend, or he was great to be, you know, someone else's boyfriend. Or if I was in the relationship, I. I had a one beautiful relationship. I sabotaged it completely. And the guy was great. It was me. So.

And that was because you. While you were in it, you almost felt more like a friend or you felt like it just wasn't... Didn't give you the excitement.

It didn't give me the excitement. I used to say to my mom, Mom, why do I get so bored with him? And he wasn't a boring person. It's a great life. It's just that I wasn't experiencing what I thought was familiar. So my parents are incredible. My mom and dad are great parents. They had me. when my mom was 19 and my dad was 20 years old. So at that time in their lives, they hadn't done a lot of healing with themselves. They didn't know who they were. They were children raising children. That's what they were really doing. So I grew up with my parents trying to find who they were, and they sometimes argued a lot. They argued a lot. So in my household and in my experience, because my youngest brother didn't have that experience anymore, but I did. So there was a lot of explosiveness going on. So I felt, oh, this is what love is as a little girl. Oh, if my mom and dad are explosive with each other, because he was just like that explosive, but then amazing happiness, right? Laughter, but then anger, but then laughter, but then crying, but then laugh. So in my world, when I became an adult, I was like, oh, wait a second. I'm only going to feel attracted to men that would create that experience with me of craziness, but then laughter and joy, but then anger, you know, and then that felt familiar to me. And today I think, oh, familiar is not necessarily the best thing.

That's interesting. So what were the things that when you met someone and it did feel exciting?

Yes.

Like, are you able to pinpoint some of the things that made you feel that, that were the wrong things to follow, the wrong instincts to follow?

Ooh, yes.

So, what gave you that excitement?

The excitement, just to give you an example that now for me is a huge red flag. I met a guy that I went into a relationship with that told me on the second date, I think you're gonna think I'm crazy, but I love you. Today, Healthy Me says, yeah, it may be a bit crazy because you don't know me. You can say, I like you. I like how I feel with you that speaks of you. But if you tell me, I think I love you on the second date, right? Another thing is that they would call, I mean, I'm talking about this specific person, right? But, I don't know, eight, nine times a day, hey, how you doing? And I felt seen, right? Oh my God, he cares about me. No, it was controlling, but I didn't know, 'cause it was disguised as, I am so attracted to you that I wanna know what you're doing in your life. And in reality, it was control. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. That's super interesting.

Yeah.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation. If you want to see the full two hour conversation with Marta and the Q&A that we did exclusively for Love Life Club members, you can go to joinlovelife.com and get yourself a 14 day free trial to the Love Life app where you can watch the whole thing and plenty more videos, interviews, master classes and content that can help you with your love life and your confidence. Don't forget to check out Marta's podcast, Infinitos, Plus her YouTube and Instagram. We'll link those up in the description and watch her movie Queens on the Run that is on Netflix from April the 14th. Thank you again Marta for joining us. Thank you all for watching. I will see you next time.