Master Your Relationships & Attract Lasting Love w/ Jay Shetty EP 1417

0:01I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:40Toxic love is when your trauma is the oxygen for your relationship. Right? If you think about the word, like the idea that your trauma is what you're breathing into the relationship. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

1:19I'm curious, what is the difference between toxic love and conscious love? because i feel like a lot of people get into relationships based on a wound and it causes you know toxic chemicals that might feel like love but then they unwind after six months a year two years and it feels like then it's not conscious love that they got into it from a chemical romance, wounded, as opposed to conscious healing, integrating that into a relationship. What is the difference between toxic love and conscious love? Toxic love is where both people are working independently to use the relationship to serve their own needs.

2:08That's toxic love. And conscious love is where both people independently take care of themselves so they can bring their best self to each other. And where this often goes wrong is that toxic love turns into a competition. Toxic love now is who's doing more for each other, who gives more love to each other, who does more work around the house. You turn the whole thing into a competition, which is not teamwork. And conscious love is not saying you're the selfless one. It's you're making agreements. I think that's the mistake that love was constantly, conscious love was always like, be selfless, love more than the other person, give more.

2:53That's not healthy either. What's healthy is we're actually going to create boundaries. We're actually going to create agreements. We're actually going to create principles. We're going to create rules. The reason why I called the book Eight Rules of Love is my hope that it will inspire other couples to create their own list of rules in their own relationship. A conscious relationship is one that is built on a foundation of healthy agreements. Toxic love is, it's interesting when you look at the word toxic as well. Tell me. So toxic love is when your trauma is the oxygen for your relationship.

3:33Right? If you think about the word, the idea that your trauma is what you're breathing into the relationship. Gosh, that is so true. You're just breathing your trauma into the relationship. So you bring all your baggage, all your insecurities, and you're somehow expecting the other person to inhale it all and then figure out how to respond and react. Whereas a conscious relationship is saying that I have these things, I'm trying to heal them, I'm going to make my partner aware of what I'm healing because I'm not fully healed. And now that they're aware and I'm working on it, we can also work on it together.

4:08So I think we've also had this unhealthy idea of conscious love being you're fully healed and then you come slide That's not true. It's a journey and so but the thing about the journey is are you working on yourself? Have you communicated to your partner what you're working on so that they can be aware and thirdly have you found a way to get support? I had a friend whose partner was addicted to porn and and they came up to me and they were saying that their partner feels shameful and guilty and wants to work on it. And I said, you have two choices. You can either leave them because you don't believe them and this affects you negatively, which it was, or you can stay with them and support them through their journey because they want to change.

4:52It's not that you're forcing them to change. They're coming to you about it. They're vulnerable. They're open about it. They're honest about it. And what I found in that scenario was that that person was able to support their partner now they have a really healthy relationship but the thing is that we can't also we a toxic relationship is also when you use someone's trauma against them so someone's been vulnerable with you about what they're struggling with and now you use it as ammunition in an argument to shoot them down yeah and so when people are vulnerable with you when they're honest with you when they're transparent with you don't use that against them because basically you're saying to them don't be honest with me and i think that's this really interesting thing we all say i want someone who's honest but then when someone says something honest that's uncomfortable we say no no i don't want your honesty or i don't like that and i think you push the other person away yes and so yes if it's really if they share something that's really not aligned with your values of course you can leave and move on but chances are if they're opening up about a journey they're on it's worth giving it an opportunity to support them if they're serious about it i love your definition of toxic love versus conscious love and when i was hearing you say this i was thinking that conscious love is also wanting to take emotional responsibility and accountability for emotions as opposed to saying you made me feel this way you said this you didn't do this and it made me explode on you.

6:23It's having the emotional responsibility to manage it. And if you aren't good at managing it, saying I take full accountability and I'm working on that healing journey. And I think that responsibility and accountability adds to the potential growth for conscious love. I love that. That's such a great point. It's such a great question too, because you also realize that we have so many flawed views of conscious love too. Yes. And so people always think like, toxic love, that's the worst. You could actually be doing pseudo-conscious love and that's even worse sometimes. What does that mean? Like a spiritual bypass to conscious love?

6:58Yeah, or like you're practicing it in a really superficial way. Like it's conscious in the language and the way you talk about it, but you're doing unhealthy things. Like for example, you could think you're in conscious love, but you can't deal with someone's honesty. You think you're in conscious love but you don't feel comfortable having uncomfortable conversations you think oh yeah we just talk about good stuff and everything's positive perfect all the time and we never we never argue yeah we never argue and it's like well no it's important to have uncomfortable conversations and so i find that a lot of couples struggle with having these uncomfortable conversations we didn't get into fight styles but we'll get it whenever you want because that question was so good that question was so good and don't feel i'm saying this as a friend now like off camera in the sense of like this is so good bro like this is an interview that i haven't done with anyone because it's not about the book and we're getting into it so it's like don't feel any pressure to go into the like yes the stuff we're talking about is amazing yeah i just reiterating as a friend yeah yeah it's so good so what were you gonna say though you were saying something i was i was just saying that this superficial idea of conscious love becomes really practiced as a deeper love so so yeah like we we don't argue uh but we avoid having uncomfortable conversations.

8:13Everything's always good, but I often go to sleep at night wondering what they're thinking, right? Like that's not conscious because it looks good. It's conscious because you're constantly working on it. I think we're so scared of accepting that something may need fixing because that means it's broken, but it's not broken. There's just parts to relook at. Yes. What are the things that most people don't think are harmful to hurting loving relationships that are actually the most harm? Not like he cheated or she lied to me or he's watching porn or whatever that is. But what are actually the things that most people think that's not really that big a deal, that actually you do it year after year after year is a big deal breaker in ruining relationships?

9:08Maybe it's the little things. Maybe it's the, you know, whatever it might be. Is there anything you can think of? Yeah, there's a few things I can think of.

9:17I'd say there's four coming to mind right now. Yeah. The first one I'd say is the idea of control. I think we're trying to control the other person, but it doesn't look like control. It looks like care. And that's the interesting thing. It's like manipulative care. Correct. Yeah, exactly. So control in a relationship can often look like care, but deep down you're doing it because you want to control the other person. Right. So you want to tell them what to wear. You want to tell how to spend their money and how to invest it. You want to tell them how to live their life and which friends are good for them and which friends are bad for them.

9:58Now, it's different when that's a conversation from them to you and asking for your advice. But the best thing you can do as a coach, a partner, a guide, a friend is to help someone understand what their goals are. We talk about this all the time. Like we don't project what I think is a worthy life or a worthy podcast or a worthy home onto what someone else wants because we all have different values. And so I think we do, controlling means, I don't want to understand your values and what you believe in. I'm going to project mine onto you because I think they're superior anyway. And I feel more comfortable if that's the case.

10:34And it's very subtle. Like this is something you have to really monitor. Like, you know, I'll give an example of like, I've always been driven, or at least I've been driven for a lot of my adult life. and one thing I had to be really careful for when I met Radhi was to not project my ambition and drive onto how she lived. And hoping she does the same thing. Correct, because Radhi's this beautiful, abundant, like, sun energy. Joyful, feminine, flowing. Yeah, flowing, and she's in flow. And that's what makes her beautiful. That's what makes her attractive. It's what makes her special to me and to everyone else who knows her.

11:11and if I try and contain that and try and direct it towards what I think it should be I could potentially make her lose all of that and so I've seen my role with Radhi as being more protecting and helping her protect that than exploiting it and I think it's so easy for us to think well I'm driven and I'm ambitious and look what I've done and so my partner should do that too and it's like well maybe they shouldn't I remember I was speaking to a client actually you know, this was a friend. They weren't a client. I was speaking to a friend and she was saying, oh, you know, my partner, he's lazy. He doesn't work hard.

11:45He doesn't have any ambition. And I said, well, if you want someone who has ambition, is driven and works hard, then he's not your guy. That's basically all it's saying. And she was saying, no, no, no, but he's really kind and loving and thoughtful. And I was like, okay, well, which one do you want? And if you want both, go out there and look for it. But chances are, that's tough too. Or if he's driven, I mean, he may not have as much time for you. That's what it was. And that's exactly what she discovered, that she was like, I want someone who's driven and present. And I was like, they can be present in the moment, but they're not going to have as much time available.

12:16Or at least not during their season of being driven. Correct. Maybe in 20, 30 years, it'll change, but you can't expect it to change. Exactly. Okay, so that's number one, the idea of control. Yes. The second one, which again is subtle, and that's why I love your quality of your question, because it's like, what do we miss or what do we not see, is comparison. Yeah. I think we do it without even knowing. I've heard couples literally say, oh, did you see where they went for their anniversary trip? And there's some passive messaging in there. That's true. And you're passing it off like you're really happy for this person, but really there's this part of you that's saying, we didn't do that, or I wish we did that, or why don't you think of stuff like that?

12:56And I think passive aggression in comparison, comparison will make your partner feel... comparison is the number one thing you can do to make your partner feel devalued and unlovable there is nothing like comparing your partner to another person now some people will say i'm not comparing them i'm just saying what someone else is doing yeah but you're pointing out something that we're not doing which makes me feel like i'm not enough exactly that is that is the bottom line that's it you do that week after week year after year you're like i'm never enough for this person What do I need to do so they start celebrating what we're doing, not what everyone else is doing?

13:34Exactly. Exactly. And I think that that comparing is so unhealthy. Yeah. OK. Two more. I think complaining about your partner to your family and other people, it creates a loop. So if you complain about your partner to your family, then your family is going to check in with you. and then you complain again and then they check in with you. Now, I'm not saying you don't talk to your family about your partner, but there's a difference in saying, hey, we're going through this and we're going to therapy and we're figuring this out versus he's so this, she's so that, they're so that. And I find that that complaining that we do, it also seeps into what we spot in our partner.

14:18We're now looking for them to confirm our complaint. So if we just complained about our partner and said, oh, they never do this. When we go home and they haven't washed the dishes, we're like, oh yeah, see, I was right. and now we're double triggered rather than talking to them and communicating and saying, hey, when I come home from work and I see this, I'm triggered by XYZ. Let's talk about this. So complaining. And that goes back into your third agreement of love. I love that. And the fourth and final one that comes to mind right now is this one's really tough because I had a friend who was going through this a lot.

14:51Whenever he was making progress in something, like let's say he got a promotion, his partner would say to him, I don't know how they promote you. I never see you work. Oh, my God. It was criticism. Like diminishing them. Diminishing them. So it's criticism. Yeah, it's like diminishing them about something that they've achieved or missed out on. Or someone saying, oh, I didn't get that promotion. And you say, well, yeah, I didn't really see you work for it. Right. So there's criticism either way. And I think we do this because we want to be honest with our partners or we want to tell them the truth.

15:26We don't want to lie to them. Or most of the time, it's because we're hard on ourselves. We're criticizing ourselves for not achieving what we wanted. And now we project that criticism onto our partner for what they wanted. And criticism ends up making someone feel so far away from you. Like criticism increases distance in a relationship. It pushes someone so far away because you've made them feel unworthy, unwanted, and not enough. And again, I'm not saying the opposite is praise your partner, tell them really nice things about themselves. But there's a way to communicate about certain challenges they're going through.

16:05It's not in the moment saying, hey, I didn't get the job. Oh, yeah, well, better luck next time. Or, oh, it didn't quite work out. And you might say, well, people don't do this. I promise you what I'd love for everyone to do with this. I'm going to set a little challenge. If you're in a relationship, I want you to do an audit or a count of how many of these you do every week about your partner. So just do it honestly. Honestly, for the next seven days, if you're in a relationship, think about how often you complain, compare, criticize, or try to control. And just keep a count. Now, you may get through the week and you only do one.

16:39That's amazing. I'm really, really happy. but if you're really self-aware and you're really questioning yourself i'd find that even i do a few of these things constantly and what's even i think this is a beautiful audit and probably a lot of people don't even aren't even aware they're doing it that's what it is a pattern and an unconscious reaction to seeing something yeah and even if you don't do it verbally i would ask yourself to audit it internally that's what i'm saying criticizing am i comparing without even saying it maybe i i I keep the peace and I don't say what I really think, but are you thinking it?

17:13Yeah, you're scrolling on social media. Yeah, yeah. Am I comparing? Am I complaining in my mind? I wish he would do this. I wish he would do this. But without saying it, that's still like creating this rumination inside of you. I love that audit. We are here talking about eight rules of love, how to find it, how to keep it, and how to let it go. If you guys haven't got a copy yet, make sure to get 10 copies right now. Now, this question is about the greatest skill you think that everyone should learn in order to master love. What is that skill that will allow them to find it, keep it and let it go, but really to master it?

17:50I'd say the number one skill to master love in relationships is to remember that in every relationship, there are three relationships. the one you have with yourself the one your partner has with themselves and then the one you have with each other that's good and i think so often we only think about the one we have with each other we don't realize that so many of the challenges in our relationship are because of our relationship with ourselves and our partner's relationship with themselves we think i'm doing everything but they don't feel better but that's because they're going through something internally we think I'm giving them everything I'm doing everything they need I'm here supporting them but if they've got something going on internally they can't even receive any of that and so often we look at it through the lens of it's just me and them that's just not true and so you have to remember that there was a you before there was a you during and there's a you after every relationship and there's a them before a them during and a them after every relationship and when you accept and understand that you can actually solve problems easier because now you have three things to look at rather than just one so you can start to understand okay well is that their internal thing is it my thing let's check with them let's let's communicate let's figure that out you just gotta really become a master of human dynamics yes like understanding human dynamics yeah and all that stuff it's interesting when i was playing sports i remember a coach asked us at one point um he said there's always three teams on the field wow your team the team you're playing against and then the refs wow there's always like you know you're never just playing against the team you've got to be aware of how the refs are calling the game how to influence the game in certain ways you know how to show up differently but there's it's never just you versus someone else or you with someone else it's always like your interpretation to yourself their outside of there's always so much else going on but i think yeah that that skill of of understanding there's three relationships in one and navigating those i really think of that as like just learning how to master emotions you know it's like learning how to be the master of your emotions understand someone else's emotions and the emotion that you're creating together speaking of creating together you mentioned this a little bit before about conscious love having agreements principles boundaries and rules which i think is a great thing most people don't have that they just have assumptions and expectations that goes more into toxic love yeah a friend of mine ryan holmes told me this years ago when he got married i was like what has made this like a healthy relationship for you he was like you know we created a what did he call it like a family vision we created that we actually sat down and we created like a family crest like a sign a symbol of what we wanted to mold together to build our family.

20:46Something like we used to do in England like 500 years ago. And he said, doing that allowed us to get clear on our principles, what we wanted to really step into, how we wanted to serve each other and our communities, our families and the world. And I thought that's cool. Is there anything that you have around building kind of like a relationship motto, you know, crest, vision? Is there anything you talk about around that? Yeah, I talk a lot about how there's three things. You've got liking someone's personality. You've got respecting their values. And then you've got a commitment towards helping them get to their goals.

21:26Right? So that's my definition of love. My definition of love is when you like someone's personality, when you respect their values, and you're committed to helping them towards their goals. Which means you have to know what your values are and theirs. And you have to know what your goals are and theirs. And someone asked me the other day, they're about to get married, and they said, Jay, what's your advice? And I said, do you know your partner's top three values? And they struggled. I think so. Yeah, and they were saying. Friends and family. Yeah, exactly. Very, very broad things. And I was like, well, what does that mean?

22:03What's the hierarchy? What's the order? And then I said, well, do you know your partner's goals for the next 12 months? and they struggled again. They were like, oh, I don't know. They're just settling into a new job. And I was thinking, if you don't know who your partner is and where they're going, then how are you meant to be their partner? And so to me, check-ins about these three things regularly and consistently give you a full vision of who your partner is and where they're headed. And that's so good. Liking their personality is what you said first, right? If you don't like someone's personality, You're going to spend 10 ,000 meals with them.

22:39You better enjoy their personality. Exactly. And that's the study that shows that to make some, and me and you are great friends because of this, by this definition too. And I've really thought about this. So to make someone a casual friend, you should have spent 40 hours with them. 40 hours for a casual friend. If you consider someone a good friend, you have to spend 100 hours with them. And if you consider someone a great friend, you should have spent 200 hours with them. We've definitely spent more than 200 hours together. but that's the question I would ask when you say like their personality can you spend 200 present hours together not just 200 hours watching TV or other movies present hours with no distractions you and the other person I heard this I think it was a year ago you're going to spend 10 ,000 meals with someone if you're with them forever can you sit across the table and have 10 ,000 meals and enjoy the meals for the most part so I love this liking personality respecting values I think, you know, with Martha, I got so clear on my values and communicating it effectively.

23:42And she asked me early on, I've told you this before. She asked me early on the, what are your priorities, Lewis, question. I don't know, maybe a month into dating. Like, what are your real priorities in life, right? That like every man fears answering. And I said, ooh, do I step into courage here or do I shy back to keep it comfortable and not stir the boat? And I remember saying, well, I want to be very honest and authentic with you, but I don't know if you're going to like it, and I don't know if you're going to want to hang out in this way anymore. Yeah. She was thinking that I'm going to say something horrible.

24:17And I was like, do you want me to be fully honest? And she looked at me and said, yes. I said, are you sure? Because I've been honest in the past, and people don't like it. Yeah. Are you sure? And she said, yes. Take a deep breath. I'm like, okay, I've got to have this courage. because I just know that I thought that she wouldn't like what I was about to say. And I said, okay, here are my three main values in order in life. Number one is I value my health, and that needs to be like my top priority. Because if I'm sick, I can't do really anything. So I need to take care of health first, and you need to support me in making sure that I use my energy to do that on a consistent basis.

24:59You can't pull me away from my health or healthy activities. It would make me feel bad for going to the gym or whatever it is. Number one. Number two. Priority number two is my purpose, my mission. Like in the season of life, the mission that I have right now, and that's being all in, focused on that and not feeling bad about it, not taking time away from it, not being resentful of it, any of those things. That's priority number two. And I was like, no woman wants to hear from their man or potential man that they're not their number one or number two priority. And I said, then number three would be my relationship.

25:37You know, if we're going to end up dating together, it would be us. And I said, that doesn't mean you want to be like, I would never have time for you. Yeah, I'm not going to choose the gym over here. But I need to make sure those first two priorities are set in stone so that I can actually give to you more. So that I can be more present with you. So I can give you fully, abundantly, and we can do all the things you want to do, you're going to feel like number one, but you need to know that number one and two, I have to do these first. So good. And you will feel like the most important person in the world.

26:12But if I don't feel healthy, if I'm being pulled away from my purpose and my mission, I'm not going to be good for you. So good. And she looked at me, she goes, this is amazing. And she goes, it's amazing. I love this. And I go, really? Because I'm thinking like I've experienced and I've heard other people experience that if you're not making your woman your number one priority. Yeah. If you don't put me first over everything, then it's like a stressful experience. Yeah. And for me, that goes back into toxic love. And it's not about you aren't my top priority. It's prioritizing health and purpose and service.

26:53Whether you want to call it the same level or just above it. So that you have the energy to be present to your relationship. At least that's for me what I feel like a man needs to be in their relationship. They've got to be on purpose, right? And she told me, I love it because I've never been with a man who had a purpose. They always made me their purpose. And after a while, it doesn't feel good. You're like, go out and do the thing you want to do in life. Like, I don't care if you want to, you know, serve two people a day, but go do something that you're excited about. Not just make it about me.

27:25And so give me your thoughts on this idea or this philosophy, if you think that's in alignment with your eight rules of love or if you think that's I'm crazy and I just got a lucky one who just accepts me for that. I love it. So it's really interesting you say you did that because inside my book, Eight Rules of Love, I actually talk about how I gave a client that same exercise. So I asked them to rank their top three priorities in order and I was coaching the couple. so the man wrote you the kids me and she wrote me the kids you and he was so upset like he was go ahead no go ahead this is funny because i want to unpack this because i went to um caesar milan the dog whisperer and i took my team to do like a full day leadership training which you got to take your team one day so cool and he was always scared ceases gonna give me a dog that's why i don't go i know i'm so scared and he and he talks about the dynamics at least in america of relate married couples where if you if he asked most women what's the priorities in the relationship it's it's like mom kids dog then the husband this is what he says a lot of women say it's like the husband is last because they get this unconditional love from the dog but that's after the kids oh my gosh and then husband and he's like we've got it all backwards yeah yeah you know we need to be the parents need to be leading the pack yes together side by side yes right so anyways i don't want to no no no i love that that's a beautiful point yeah so so you said he had one thing which was her the kids and then himself and she had herself the kids and then the man exactly exactly so what happened from that dynamic and what happens when you enter or in a relationship like that well he was distraught and he was really upset because he was just like how can i be third on your list and even more than that he was actually upset that she put herself first that's what he was more upset about he actually wasn't that upset about being third he was more upset about how are you first for yourself how is it not the kids or the kids how is it not the kids?

29:45And her response was similar to yours that I want to be present, energized, and my best for you and the kids. I don't want to give my leftovers to you and the kids. And I often say this to people, like if someone is emotionally and energetically dead, how can they keep you alive? It doesn't make any sense. And so what we have to understand is someone's not being selfish by focusing on themselves if they're doing it with a selfless spirit. That's the key. So you may meet a man who's not like Lewis and says, yeah, I'm first for me. I'm first. And they're only doing that because they think they're first.

30:28There's no, I'm going to take care of myself so I can be better for you. That's the spirit you're looking for. So you're looking for someone who's selfish with a selfless spirit, not just someone who's selfish and there's a difference and it could sound like the same thing it could even look like the same thing you could meet someone who says I'm dedicated to my purpose I'm dedicated to who I am but it's not anything to do with you and I think that's the difference people who prioritize self-care in order to serve that's the self-care we want in our lives and so that's what I encourage in people that you should always take care of yourself so you can take care of your partner so you can take care of your kids.