5 Steps To Create A Beautiful Partnership & Find Love TODAY [MASTERCLASS] EP 1433

25:16That's what living free is. Living free means, and 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 yeah and what I can't if their entire story about the relationship that just ended is about what the other person did wrong to them, something is missing in the story.

26:15That doesn't mean that the other person may not have done things that were hurtful to them. But add to it, who were you in this relationship? Absolutely. What role did you play? What did you see that you didn't want to pay attention to? What things do you wish you had done differently? what pieces do you wish that your partner had seen and accepted from you differently where did you wish you would have said less and where did you wish you would have said more what do you learn from this relationship and if when you say what you learn is just that i want to make sure that the next person is right gives me what i need you know or is less of this or more of that, you know, who do you want to be in the next relationship?

27:06How are you going to add value? A relationship is a story of many people. It's not even a story just of two. Who was too involved in your relationship? Who was not involved enough? So there's a cast of characters in a relationship. And it's all those questions that you want to ask when you are in transition. What, I think that's it. But they are both directions. If you find yourself with a spotlight only on the other person and you in a passive receptive stance, you're missing a whole pan of the story. Yeah. And you're probably more of the problem of the relationship than them if you're just focusing on them probably.

27:52A relationship is not about this person and that person. The relationship is what happens in between. This is my view on relationships. It's not an essentialist view. This is this personality and that personality. It's the dynamic. You can have a dynamic with a certain partner. You've had dynamics with certain partners. And of course, it was just the right fit between the match and the ignition. And so you had enough inside of you to react with a certain kind of, let's put, your jealousy. but you may meet another person who acts differently and you may still have a little bit of that jealousy inside of you but it doesn't get activated because this person is responding very differently to you and when you say where were you they don't say why do you always have to ask me that question they just say I just went to do this it's all good darling I'm right here I've got you back and then you don't go into your chest pain you know pain so this is very important to understand we are not the same person with different partners.

28:59We may have certain things that come out depending on what is being sent over to us. So the relationship is a figure eight. It's what I do that makes you do something, that then makes you react to me a certain way, that then draws that out of me, that draws that out of you. And each one actually creates the other. And when you get that view of relationships, when you come out and you're in transition, you say to yourself, let's say, I was with someone who completely disconnected. Okay, they're disconnected. Did I push them away? Are there ways in which I contributed sometimes to the disconnection?

29:44And that is not self-blame. That is understanding the dynamic. You can take responsibility about things without blaming yourself and you can hold the other person accountable without blaming them it's it's not a blame dance but it is an understanding of what did I do that made you do what you then did to me then then they've made that's the relationship yeah and if someone's like you know what to listen to you Esther they really want to have an amazing relationship they want to have a rich life knowing it's not going to be perfect but they want to create beauty and adventure and play and go through life through the sadness and the adversities and all the things that happen in life.

30:24And they're thinking to themselves, how much should I pour into myself for my dreams, my health, my friends and family? How much should I pour into the other person, into their life that I'm creating a partnership with? And how much should I pour into the relationship itself? What would you say to that? But you asked me, it's different questions, right? What keeps a relationship alive is one question. How much do you invest in a relationship is a different question. So I'm going to go to the one about what keeps it alive. Because it's part of, and I'm suddenly watching the box and thinking, it is what I'm mostly interested in.

31:12Because I work on eroticism. What keeps us alive? What keeps us hopeful? What keeps us engaged with possibility? Not physically alive, but connected alive. Physically connected to life. Life force, life energy. Why? Because I think everybody understands relationships that are not dead versus relationships that are alive. Teams that are not dead. Companies versus companies that are alive. What is flourishing versus surviving? And because it is part of my personal history, and I come from a background of survivors, of parents who were in concentration camps, and I wanted to understand how do people stay alive when they spend five years in a concentration camp.

32:01So that's why I got interested in eroticism. Sexuality is a piece of this, but sexuality is not eroticism. You can have sex every day and feel nothing. Eroticism is the poetry that accompanies it. It's the meaning we give to it. Right? It's the story that's attached. So eroticism in a relationship is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk-taking, novelty that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship. So in the research of Eli Finkel, it means doing new things together, taking risks beyond your threshold, out of your comfort zone.

32:47Because if you do pleasant things that are familiar, it's cozy, it's friendship, it's love, but it's not exciting. It's not erotic. It's not necessarily desire. It's calibrating your expectations. and that means diversifying your intimate connections or your deep connections. For me, intimacy doesn't mean sexual either. It just means people that are important to you, that accompany you through the life stages and through the big events in life. These three things, expectations, calibrating expectations, diversifying your social connections and taking risks and doing new things is the research of Eli Finkel for thriving relationships.

33:31But then in that piece, I think play is essential. It's huge, right? Playfulness, it's huge. And it is actually the quality of emotions that is the least talked about. How often are you playing in your relationship? All the time. Humor is essential. It's an essential salve and balm in my relationship. I can be in the middle of an argument and then I start to laugh. And then I just get perspective and we just kind of ground ourselves back again. It's flirting. It's teasing. It's making fun of. It's that whole realm of we're not really serious and we don't take ourselves that serious. And what happens when relationships are taking themselves very serious and they're not playing?

34:21Look, I had a teacher who once said to me, if a couple comes to you for therapy and there is absolutely zero humor left, it is diagnostic. Really? Now, is it true? You know, nobody has proven that scientifically. But what you know is that humor, and if you listen to my podcast, if you listen to the sessions on where should we begin or on how it works, you'll see in the middle of talking about trauma, painful event, major fight, strife, I laugh with them. I manage to see if they can see themselves, if they have a bit of distance, of perspective, if they understand sometimes the absurdity of the things that we get into, the things over which we fight, the way we do it.

35:09And even if it's just a glimmer, a smile on the side, on the corner, I know they know that I know that we know. And it creates that complicity and it invites a new possibility. Some people may be resisting the humor. They want to hold on to this seriousness. Yes. If you want to hold on to righteousness, to I am right, to victimization, to I have the view that is the only view that matters and only my perception and my experience is the truth, then you are in a polarized system that is rigid and unyielding humor and play is possibility possibility invites change change invites healing yes i want to ask you a few more questions then i want us to play your game for a little bit um over the last two years was there anything that came up for you personally in your own inner world that you noticed oh there's something like we talked about it, it created a lot of pressure for people if there were things that came out.

36:14Was there anything for you that you were like, huh, there's something I still need to work on myself or need to continue the healing journey of that came out in the last couple of years with being at home and not doing things the way they used to be? I will answer this in two ways. The way that I experienced the pandemic. So in the first, in the beginning, right after I left you. I went back to New York and I went in lockdown. And basically, it was in the, you know, suddenly kind of, I got gripped with a bit of a panic and primarily because I thought I can't catch this thing. Because if I catch it, I am now suddenly considered elderly.

37:00I'm past 60. But you're 35. Yeah, yeah. For the pandemic, it changed. It suddenly shifted overnight. I became elderly and that meant I wasn't sure if we entered the hospital, me or Jack, that we will pass the triage. Interesting. And he's older than me. And I got really, really scared. I had a lot of post-traumatic stress symptoms that are very much connected to the Holocaust and to my family experience. That sense that overnight, this whole life I have built could just disappear like this. and it was irrational. I was terrified that Jack would die to the point, you wanted to know about humor in my relationship?

37:44So we were in the middle of construction at the time and the workers, and at that point he comes to me and he says, I asked the workers to dig a hole in the garden. I said, oh yeah, why? He said, so that when I die, you can just roll me right in. Oh my God. Wow, talk about humor. But I cracked up because he showed me, girl you gripped in fear and I just started to laugh and I just realized no no no he's not that because I was ready to stop construction I said we're not making this no one can come here within a thousand yards of no no it's more like we will not survive no way I was I really when it's post-traumatic it's it's trauma is the word right so I really was very very very scared and his humor diffused it for me and just brought me back and said, we're continuing to build.

38:34We're going to live. We're going to survive. Don't worry, girl. It's like, so this was one and it slowly, you know, I entered into the, into the long term of the pandemic and it dissolved. And that's when I understood this came out of that. I missed my friends. I missed my dinner parties. I missed intimacy and I created a host of different group experiences, pods. I had a movie club on Zoom on three continents. I had a book club. I had a yoga group that met four times a week still till now that is over two continents. Wow, that's cool. And I had a hiking group. I had a swimming group in the summer.

39:19And then one day I said, I need to play and I need to continue to have conversations where I learned something new. I was so freaking tired of talking about the pandemic all the time. And I said, I'm going to create a game. Not having any idea of what this thing was going to become and what it represented, I just thought, oh, I want to do something creative. And I'm going to, I want people to be able to talk about something that isn't just like, you know, when you live six months like this in lockdown, you begin to have the same conversation. Of course. Yeah, of course. So I just thought, how am I going to make couples have fun, get energized, you know, be curious about each other, talk about something else?

39:58And I thought, we need to play because play is a container. Play gives you the possibility to take risks, to talk about things that you would otherwise not talk about because it's under the guise of play. Play allows you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask, certainly not to your partner, because we get more shy with the people that we live with than with strangers sometimes. Really? Interesting, yeah. You know, you're more daring to ask sometimes questions to strangers. You're never going to see again. Or people you've just met than the person you live with for decades on end. That's interesting.

40:31I just, so play became very, very central. When you play, you still are able to lift yourself from the ground and it means you can enter the world of imagination. and where the rules are different. And every child at this moment, you know, around the Ukrainian crisis, you can see when kids are still able to play, it is the moments when they are not in hypervigilance. It is an essential survival skill. Yes, yes. Underrated. And from that place came where should we begin the game. It's one of the key things in a relationship and in life is what I'm hearing you say. It's essential. It's essential.

41:13It's essential. Do you think one relationship can truly thrive if one person is developing and working on themselves and processing and learning new skills and the other person is not? It's very hard, you know, because people, I think growth is very important. I also think that everyone grows at different speeds and they grow differently. So whereas therapy has been very impactful for you, for someone else it might be something different. As long as I'm doing something. Doing something, right? And I think that people grow at different speeds. And I do think that you have to love someone as though they would never change.

42:05though the funny thing is it's like we want everyone to sort of to evolve but what it but we have to it shouldn't be on their terms right that's why i told her i said listen i'm committed to my own growth i'm going to continue to grow and evolve yes but you've got to accept me where i'm at yes and if you don't accept me where i'm at now that and you want me to change right now into something that's going to make you happy this is not going to or fall in love with potential which is a trap you cannot do that no you cannot do that and also what defines growth How do you know that you're growing?

42:36You know, because some people will say they'll go on like, you know, a retreat or do ayahuasca or do something and be like, oh my God, like all of this, you know. And the other person's like, whoa. And then that doesn't mean that the other person is not growing. So it's like what really, I think growing as a couple is really important. That's why I said we've got to do, what do you call it, coaching or therapy. I love that. Committing to it together. I love that. Individual on our own and then together. I love that and and she was like yeah, I'm down so she has her own coach that she works with every two weeks for an hour An hour and a half to work on our own stuff individually.

43:11I do that as well individually and then we do it together I love that and I'm beginning from the beginning been huge for us. Oh I think it should be non-negotiable. That's why I said I was like, yeah, I'm a good for me Yeah, it's not something you want them then find someone else and I'll find someone else or whatever Yeah, because guess what no matter how much work we do on ourselves we're going to be triggered and that inner child is going to come out screaming and we're going to be like you know a total ass sometimes and you know we're going to have to apologize i mean being in a relationship means that you have to know how to forgive and forgive often because oftentimes we will make mistakes with the person we love and we don't we didn't even realize that we were doing that i mean how many times have you hurt someone's feelings and that was not your intention yeah so many so many yeah so many times so i love you know if more people because the problem is that most people enter couples therapy when it's too late when it's probably not going to work out yeah when there's just too many problems and too many things to unpack i mean yes it can work you know it can help but if you can do this stuff preemptively it's huge anything to prevent resentment and pain and suffering and frustration anything you know to foster honest conversations you're gonna you're gonna win even if you end up breaking up you're gonna still win because at least it won't be the kind of breakup that destroys you yeah this is like that traumatizes you like yeah yeah exactly hurtful back and forth yeah and that's true you know what that's trauma oh yeah Huge.

44:51And that will hold people back from opening their heart in the next relationship. I see it all the time. People are walking around so wounded and so closed. What is the most unpopular thing or truth about relationships that most people don't want to know? I'll tell you straight up that every relationship you've ever had had one thing in common and that was you. Just like every relationship I've ever had has had one thing in common, that's me. It's not that all of them cheat. is that you keep choosing cheaters. It's not that, you know, all of them are narcissists. It's that you're choosing the narcissist.

45:31It's not that, you know, all of them are this or that. You're choosing them. You're part of that. And it's such an uncomfortable truth because, you know, people don't want to see that in themselves, but it is the path to your freedom, 100%. Every relationship we have ever had has been a mirror. And it shows us where sometimes it reflects back to us where we've done a lot of work and it's lovely. Sometimes it reflects back to us how wonderful we are. And oftentimes in our past, if it hasn't worked out, it's going to reflect where our self-worth is, where our immaturity is, where our trauma is. every relationship we've ever had will reflect back to us the relationship we have with ourselves period end of story and if you can't if one cannot actually accept that they're just going to keep repeating patterns guaranteed yeah guaranteed if your picker is off and busted because mine was off for years yeah because you know like whatever you're addicted to the chaos or daddy did this or mommy's familiar it's of course it's familiar and this is this is very real i don't mean to say it cavalierly i mean it's real but then you better you have to recondition yourself to understand what a healthy person is and go for that and become healthy yourself because most toxic relationships of course there are abusive relationships where there is actually a very clear victim and a very clear perpetrator but most of the time what people refer to as toxic, which is just an overused term in the current zeitgeist.

47:20But when people refer to toxic, it's two people with consistent, because we get unregulated once in a while, that's called being human, with consistent unregulated emotional states, blaming each other for each other's pain and not taking responsibility. Dr. You did this to me. You made me feel this way. What you did hurt me. Dr. And they're constantly unregulated. That's toxicity. Now I was, in my 20s, in a horrendous relationship. Talk about chemistry, because once you have chemistry with someone, you're screwed. You're screwed. You feel this chemical connection, you're like, this feeling, you're intoxicated.

48:00It's a wrap. And the thing is, if you haven't done work on yourself, you're gonna have that chemical explosion with the one person who's bad for you. And oftentimes the person who's the best in bed is the person who's the worst for you. and usually they're just you find the sex is amazing with them because there's a danger and they and then there's also a familiarity i mean we can it's like a trauma bonding yeah exactly so i remember in my 20s i was in a relationship with someone for about a year who without question is toxic like there's just right you could feel it you knew it everyone knows it they're like what are you doing with this guy he's treating you this way and everyone knows it it's just it's a fact right but why did you stay then exactly where's the toxicity in me and the low self-worth and all of that because the thing about being in a very unhealthy relationship is two people really bringing out the worst in each other not the best yeah definitely not even close to the best to the point where that that when that relationship ends part of getting over that relationship is trying to overcome the shame that you feel for like even going there i was there how long did of life that I have with this person, the time and the energy and why would I, how could I do this?

49:14And what was I think? The shame, the guilt, right? Yeah. And also just some of the things that you did. That's like, how did I react this way? Yeah. Like that boundary that I do or like that thing that I said, like, yeah. This is interesting. I ask people this sometimes. And I ask my younger self this now. I'm like, if sex was off the table, would I have stayed in certain relationships? And there's no way. zero chance I would have stayed after a year or two years of feeling like I'm abandoning myself or getting screamed at every week or whatever. I've been like, what am I doing this for? Why would I stay in this thing?

49:49Whatever reason, that chemical bonds you for a moment and it's so strong and then you're like, okay, well, let's have a few good days and then it goes back into chaos. And you're like, let's get back to that feeling, right? But if you took that off the table or if you just waited as long as you could. Absolutely. I'm not saying to wait until marriage, but if you wait until you get to experience someone over and over and over again in lots of scenarios, and you felt safe and peaceful, then maybe, okay, you can start in that sexual interaction, but if it was - And you can make out. Yeah, of course.

50:25I'm just talking about intercourse, right? But if you took it off the table and you asked yourself, would I be in this if we didn't have sex for a year? Probably you wouldn't. Yes, exactly. If I'm not going to have sex for a year with this person, would I put up with this behavior? Yeah, exactly. Would I get screamed at? Would I be yelled at? Like, no. Exactly. I don't need this. Yeah, I don't need this. Exactly. And people, they don't want to wait. And I always say, build that emotional intimacy first. Well, what if the sex is bad? You know what? You can work on it. And when you're making out with them, you know anyway.

50:54You can have some idea. If there's a connection. Yeah, if there's, you know there's chemistry from a kiss. Period. Exactly. So you don't have to go there. and some i i've heard this a lot lately they're like if someone is boring you should run towards them not away from them you know what i mean if all you know is chaos it's chemical chaos right you should run to that's a safer environment it doesn't mean he's the one or she's the one right to be with for you but start looking at people that make you feel comfortable yes safe Yes, where you can, I tell people all the time who have that pattern of always just dating emotionally unavailable people or people that have been wrong for them.

51:36And usually what that person doesn't have the self-esteem necessary to be in a relationship with someone who is going to respect them and love them. But I tell them, just practice, go towards boring. Exactly. Go towards that person so that you can have an experience of being in the presence of someone who you could potentially date. And you can just be totally yourself. 100 % yourself. Yeah. Authentically you. No errors. No strategizing to get someone to be more interested. Yeah, you can flirt and do all that fun stuff. But no strategizing to get someone to be more interested in you. just you and that is I mean that's like revolutionary for some people what happens when we don't show our 100 % authentic selves as someone in the beginning and we reveal that 6-12 months later yeah they're really they're really shocked I didn't know you were like that I had no idea because they've fallen in love with a version that you showed them that isn't even you and we forget the truth, vulnerability is the basis of friendships and indeed relationships.

52:48When you're vulnerable, you know, people love you for you. When you're sick, when you have a bad day, they will say, then you know who your friends are. But if you pretend you're okay, I see that a lot with people who run a business, always pretend everything's fine. They never tell anyone they're lonely. And then we realize like that great DJ who killed himself. Was it Avicii? Avicii, yeah. who never told anyone, I'm falling apart here. Was it Bon Jovi? Who was it? Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen. There's so many people in the media who think, I've got to pretend I'm gray. I can't say I'm lonely. I'm sad.

53:29I'm lost. They often let you know through their songs. Look at Prince. I mean, that's so sad that he was so lonely. But they feel that if they tell us, we'll see them as weak. and needy when in fact the basis of friendship is if you're vulnerable and I am I like you because you're showing me who you really are and I can love your very soul because I know you but if I'm in love with an illusion then it can't work because I don't even know who you are. Wow how old were you when you started to realize that that you were lovable? I think in my 20 long time maybe I remember when I was 18 I had this really lovely boyfriend we'd He'd always say, you know, I love the way you look.

54:12And I remember saying to my mom, I haven't got a personality. I really believed I had no personality. I could say, I love your hair. I love your body. But I heard that I didn't have any character whatsoever. And that really bothered me. So I think, you know, it's so weird because when you change so much, you can hardly recognize the person. Looking back, I'd say really my 20s, maybe even later than my mid-20s. It was only working with my clients over and over again and seeing what was wrong with them that I began to realize, oh, that's what's wrong with everyone. Yeah. And I began to see all of my clients.

54:51They could only ever have one of three things wrong with them. What's that? Well, the first one was I'm not enough. That was the biggie. Every client I saw, whether they were a nursery school teacher or they worked in a store or they were a billionaire, a CEO or a movie star, they all had the same thing. I'm not enough. And so I've got to earn love or buy love or keep being a bigger, better deal to get love. And that's so easy to fix. You just go, you just take the I'm not out. I am enough. I always have been, I always will be. You see, the lie is every day you tell yourself, I'm not enough. You don't know you're doing it.

55:32You get up and go, look at me. I don't look right. I messed that up. I didn't leave enough time to get here. My kids aren't perfect. That client is annoyed. So every day, over and over again, you're telling yourself you're not enough. And you just have to take out the knot and go, I am enough. If I'm prepared to lie to myself every single day over and over again, why not have a better lie? I'm enough. It doesn't have to be true. People say, you know, my legs are the size of tree trunks. Well, clearly that can't be true. This is killing me. This is making me crazy. This is driving me and say none of these things are true.

56:10But if you're prepared to lie, at least have a better lie. I have great coping skills. This is a challenge, but I've got it. I can rest at the weekend. I've got this. Right. I have great coping skills is a great lie. Because if you say enough, it actually becomes true really fast. Something I say a lot, you're never given anything that you can't cope with. Or if I got a lot on, well, I'll rest at the weekend. I can deal with this. I've got this. This is fine. This is okay. So the first thing wrong with people is always I'm not enough. And if you feel like that, remember, you weren't born with it.

56:49you're in great company and just let it go because it's not true. The second thing wrong is this belief that I'm different so I can't connect. And that's kind of a modern day illness. You know, if you're in a tribe, you would connect because you'd know that you're all interrelated, you look the same. But this belief I'm different so I can't connect is... Is it I can't connect or people don't understand me? No, you connect by being the same. We're primitive people. We connect by being the same. So if you're different, it's very hard to connect because you feel different. And when you feel different, you can't connect.

57:29But then you have to remember the truth. If that's your greatest fear, it's most people's greatest fear. So if you look at E.T., he connected to Elliot, but he couldn't connect. And he had to go home because he had to be with his people. Why is there such a big fear for people? Of connecting. Yeah, I'm different, so I can't connect. Isn't different good in a lot of ways? Like being unique and being different? Unique? Well, the answer is yes and no. When you're a little kid, you go, I like SpongeBob SquarePants. I like Green Pass. I like Dr. Zeus. And we connect by being, I've got a friend, and they like what I like.

58:08Gotcha. So when we're little, we connect by being the same. And our DNA understands that we are hardwired to find connection and avoid rejection because that's how you make it as a child. You find connection, whether it's your little kitten clinging onto your leg, your dog wanting you not to leave the house, a baby holding on so tightly to mom. You understand the truth. If I'm connected, I will survive. And if I'm disconnected, I will die. because, you know, imagine 100 years ago you couldn't produce milk for your baby or 500 years ago. We understood that connection was what made us live and disconnection killed us.

58:49Why every culture practiced banishment or isolation or marooning or casting out. So connection makes us survive. Especially as adults? Yeah. Okay, so we need to feel connected. Yeah, and if you listen to all those songs, I'll die if you leave me. my world is empty without you I can't live with I can't breathe without you okay and to this day you know schools understand that someone trolls you someone ostracizes you kids you know cut you out of the group they don't speak to you so our greatest fear is if I'm different I can't connect but if you go back to that everyone's fear is being different so if you have that fear it actually means you're the same and connection is a choice you can connect to anyone all over the world whatever their race religion creed is the problem is that we we don't see that we still disconnect people you know we saw that a lot with the Boston Bombers they were so disconnected from society that that turned into hatred and it's really important at schools to look at these disconnected kids and to bring them back you know if you look at the whole jail system in Finland it's all about We don't put people in isolation and then send them back out into the world crazy and full of anger.

1:00:08We reconnect. And so our greatest fear as humans is to be disconnected. So how do we reconnect if we feel like our friend group has pushed us away, our family has sent us away? How do we feel connected? Well, sometimes you've got to find a new group. I mean, you know, your family are just what I call your original family. You can have an, you know, first of all, you have your nuclear family, mum, dad, brother, sister, auntie, uncle, grandma. But then when you get married, they become your extended family. And so you can always create a family. So don't go back to the old tribe that hurt you and expect them to get better.

1:00:46I think a lot of our problems is I expect my mum suddenly to become wonderful. She was always mean and hostile, but I expect her to be kind and lovely. She's got old now. Aren't old ladies sweet? No. Sometimes they're still cranky. A bitter cranky person doesn't become sweet when they're 80. And often the belief is I gotta go back to my family and make them love me when there's a whole world out there to love you. And if people hurt you, not always intending to, and you keep going back to them, they can't always make it better. It's like, you know, if you, if your family had that capacity to love you a cup, but my capacity is Olympic swimming pool, Well, I can't expect that to fill me up.

1:01:29I can fill them up. They can't fill up me. If my parents have a shot glass capacity to give me love and I've got the ocean capacity, how can a shot glass fill up the ocean? Stop going back to people that hurt you and find there are people all over the world that will love you and fill you up. But we keep going back to the hurt is expecting them to make it better. They're often so hurt they can't. and they often do things like, well, you know, people like us, we don't have that. And look at those people. We're not like that. So it's, I feel different. You know, if your dad was the town drunk, if you didn't have a dad and everyone else did, if you had money and everyone else didn't or vice versa, we buy in very early to this.

1:02:13I'm different. I'm different. And you're not different. You're the same. So you have to stop looking for what makes you different because that's the confirmation bias. That's whatever you look for, you're going to find it. I mean, I was a principal's daughter. I felt different the day I went to school and my whole child, because my dad was the headmaster. And that was actually horrible. I realize now that was not a good thing. But I was always looking for what made me different. And then it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I kept looking for it. Plus, you know, I could hypnotize people and that made me feel even more different.

1:02:48And I had this kind of ability to work out what's wrong with someone really quickly. And that's both good and bad, it's actually good. But whatever you look for, you will find whatever you are moving towards, you'll get more of. If you look for why your head is killing you, or say, I'm a bit dehydrated, I'm gonna drink some water, rub some lavender on my head, I'll be fine in 20 minutes. You gotta decide where you're going. And if you look for what makes you different, you will find it over and over again. But if you say, well, why don't I look for what makes me the same, we're all the same somewhere, then you'll find that too.

1:03:26And it can be very hard if you're dealing with someone who's violent or aggressive or acting out. But if you can look for what makes you the same and not different, it really changes your life. Because then you can't be disconnected. Right. And you can go all over the world. You can hang out with tribes. You know, my friend was in Rwanda with the gorillas. And actually, if you think you're like them, I did this thing of walking with wolves. And the first thing you must do is you have to crouch down. You mustn't bear your teeth. You can't wear wool. And the wolf comes up and decides that you're a wolf.

1:03:58And then you go for a walk and it keeps rounding you back up. If you walk away, it takes you back into the wolf pack because it thinks you're one of them. And if you can make a wolf think you're one of them or a gorilla, then of course you can do it with people. but you have to start from, I'm like you, you're like me, I'm the same as you, and I can connect with you somewhere, somehow. Stop looking for what makes you different, to look for what makes you the same, because it really is life-changing. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

1:04:39And if you want weekly, exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts, share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.