The MAIN Cause of BREAKUPS (Do THIS to Heal YOURSELF & Find LASTING Love!)

0:00My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, or if you feel exhausted, or if you feel exhausted, you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you're a big for a big for a big and have finished it already and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, 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 I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life, 10 years ago at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life, and the book I'm glad I have today for myself.

0:48Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get your copy today. Again, lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on Audible now so you can get it on audiobook as well. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. In a successful relationship, I recognize my own willingness to work on things with my partner and I trust that my partner has their own willingness to work on things. Now if either of those things are ruptured this is a significant break in the relationship that's hard to come back from and working on stuff looks different for every relationship.

1:35Welcome 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.

1:58This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Hasu Jo is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the head of clinical operations at BetterHelp. And her clinical focus is on Asian American mental wellness, anxiety and stress management, relationships and family dynamics, and trauma relief. I'm very excited about this because a lot of people struggle getting into healthy, conscious relationships, getting into relationships and then developing it into marriages. It just seems like there's a lot of challenges in the world right now on how to navigate life in general, let alone relationships and all the different dynamics of marriage.

2:38And I wanted to ask you, my first question is, how can the different childhood traumas that we've experienced affect our current relationship or ones we're about to get into? If you can talk about that for a minute. That's a big question. And I do want to start by saying, just because you experienced trauma as a child, it does not mean that you are now having some issues in your relationship or if you're having issues in your relationship now. Now, it doesn't mean that it's a direct outcome of the trauma you experienced. And I say that because I don't want people to hear me and think that they are doomed to a future of challenge in relationship if they've experienced something as a young person.

3:20But I will say trauma at any age and for folks that need a refresher, trauma is an event or a series of events that really strips away your sense of safety in this world. And that can come from being a survivor of abuse. It could be because you are a witness of some kind of violence, some kind of life-threatening, very dangerous situation, something that feels really scary, something that is very scary. These things can get stored in our bodies. They get stored in our psyche. They get stored in the core of our identity and who we are if we don't process this stuff, if we don't heal from these things.

3:54So for a child, for a young kid who's still developing their worldview and their sense of self, trauma, whether that's abuse, whether it's witnessing violence, whether it's a significant loss of a loved one or anything in between, this can manifest in the child's worldview. thus leading to this child growing up into an adult who has learned not to trust the world because the world isn't a safe place, not to find safety in other people, and to potentially expect the worst from others. If anything, somebody that's gone through trauma as a young person, as a child, can even start to believe that they should expect the worst from themselves.

4:33When you think about kids, their thinking is very pure. Their thinking is pretty black and white a lot of the time. and to make sense of something bad happening to me as a little kid, it must be because I'm a bad person. So if this child does not grow into a person that's able to process or heal from this trauma, they hang on to that core idea that bad things happen to me because I'm a bad person. And because I'm a bad person, I'm going to reenact this in my current relationships as an adult. I'm not going to be able to communicate clearly because I'm a bad person. All this shame that's been piling on all these years.

5:09It can really turn into challenge and communication in the ways that you show up in a current relationship. Do you think we should enter a new relationship if we have certain traumas that really make us more defensive, more guarded, hold back our feelings and our emotions? Should we even enter a new relationship before we actually address that trauma? I don't know if there's an all-encompassing answer to this. I don't want to say no, don't do that. Because I think there are plenty of people out there that have, and they have found incredible growth and healing while in relationship. It could be that their partner has helped them navigate something.

5:48All this to say, if you feel like you really hate yourself, which can take some time to uncover or figure out, it's going to be a difficult thing to expect anybody else to enjoy spending time with you when you can't even stand yourself. right so rather than saying like no don't do it I would just take some inventory of where you are how you're feeling about your ability to communicate effectively not only be respectful to your partner but respectful to yourself because everything that we do everything that we put out there as output whether that's our behavior our words the ways that we connect the ways that we don't.

6:26This all, I think, really originates from how we feel about ourselves. People that love themselves, you can tell. People that have very low self-esteem, you can tell. We've gotten pretty good at identifying these things in other people. It can be very difficult to identify those things in ourselves. So I think it starts there as a practice of introspection. And it seems like, for some reason, from my observation, when someone doesn't love or accept themselves or they have a low self-esteem, they want love from another person, but they're unable to receive it still because they don't believe that they're deserving of it or they're worthy of it.

7:02So they look for it from another partner. That other partner tries to give it to them, but they struggle receiving it. And so it's like they want it, but they can't have it. And it's right in front of it. And it doesn't matter how much harder someone tries to give them love or support in a relationship, they still either sabotage, defend, you know, do something to harm self or the relationship. I hear what you're saying that you can still find healing and growth and in the relationship, but I'm just such a believer that if we're not finding a way to create that self-love, it's just going to be hard to have a fruitful relationship.

7:40It's just going to struggle. I agree with you. And, you know, folks that are entering a relationship that have all this unresolved stuff, whether they realize it or not, some piece of them is going to expect for their partner to heal them. And that's a huge thing to put on any person. It's a big responsibility. That's a big weight. And then there's probably resentment in the case if they don't feel healed from their partner, whether it's... So I guess I'm curious about the actions someone should take before entering a relationship. If people have heard us on on our show before and heard me talk about therapy and having coaching and support.

8:21How can someone really tap into therapy? And what is the main benefit of therapy, whether they are single and want to be in a relationship, or they've already gotten to a relationship and they realize they don't want to mess it up? Well, if you're single, and you've already made the decision that you want to try therapy, or you've started therapy, and you're wondering, how is this thing going to help me? How is this thing going to help me figure myself out and show up a little bit healthier, a little bit in a more loving, kind, patient way in my current relationship, in my next relationship? You know, therapy is not just about getting you ready for a relationship.

8:59I don't want people to think that that's what that is. Therapy is somewhere that one can begin discovering their sense of self-worth. And we talked about people that have low self-esteem, this is a good place to start figuring out how do you increase that level of self-esteem? How do you start discovering what your own value is in the world? We create those things internally. And you mentioned, you know, people that don't have that might start seeking it out from external sources, external validation. So I think single people specifically going into therapy, you can start learning about something called self-love.

9:37We hear about this all the time, but I think a lot of people have a difficult experience conceptualizing what it means to love yourself. It's much easier said than done, especially if you've lived your whole life not loving yourself, in fact, loathing yourself. Components of self-love include compassion, patience, understanding, kindness. I think these are some of the things that we'll think of when somebody says, what is love? These are the things that we want to extend to somebody else, but for whatever reason can be so difficult to give to ourselves, especially when somebody feels like they don't deserve it.

10:11Why do you think, based on a, I guess, a therapeutic analysis, why do you think so many people have grown up believing they're not deserving of love? Is it the traumas they experience that are stored in the memory and in the body at the same time that cause them to believe they're not lovable? Is it conditioning from something else? Or is it really, they haven't learned how to navigate the traumas of the past, bigger, big T or little T's, you know, long traumas or smaller traumas. And it's stored in the body, it's stored in the memory, and it's causing a belief system of I'm not lovable or I'm not deserving.

10:51Well, I think you just answered that question. I think for some people, it's some combination of some of the things you said. For some people, it's all of the above. Going back to this thing I talked about a little kid having experienced abuse by the hands of somebody that they looked up to that they was they were hoping would be an unconditional provider they make sense of that as that must have happened to me because I deserved it because my mom and dad are perfect they're amazing the only reason that they would do something bad to me is because I'm bad and I deserved it and so if you don't resolve that by processing find some kind of healing and find some kind of understanding that it wasn't your fault, then it makes a lot of sense to turn into an adult that feels like bad things happen to me because I'm bad.

11:36And then you start doing things like fulfilling this self prophecy, right? Pushing people away, withdrawing, shutting down, being disrespectful. And then convincing yourself after the outcomes of that behavior, I knew this was going to happen because I deserve bad things. Right. Right. This is fascinating because for many years, if I'm self-diagnosing myself on my pattern of behavior and choices and relationships and all these different things, I would choose different relationships and partners based out of a wound and somehow it would never work out. Right. And it would kind of be like a struggle because I wanted it to work out and they wanted it to work out, but we weren't really choosing from the right healthy, conscious place.

12:24I'm curious, what is the main cause that most people break up in a relationship? Is it they lack a shared vision and values? Is it they don't know how to communicate with each other effectively or they just hurt each other too much emotionally? What's kind of the main cause of a breakup that you see? Well, all those things you listed, I've observed them in many relationships. It could be one of those are the primary reason for somebody. But if I take a bird's eye view of everything, trying to figure out what is that thing that's common in the breakup, it kind of boils down to they are not on the same page.

12:59And that could be for a variety of reasons, including the ones that you just listed or something else that we haven't discussed yet. in a successful relationship, what I recognize in myself, I'm putting myself in the position of being in a successful relationship. I recognize my own willingness to work on things with my partner. And I trust that my partner has their own willingness to work on things. Now, if either of those things are ruptured, as in I noticed that I no longer want to work on stuff, or I'm not trusting that they want to work on stuff, I don't trust them to continue wanting to be with me.

13:34This is a significant break, I think, in the relationship. It's hard to come back from if both people are not on board to work on stuff. And working on stuff looks different for every relationship. Working on stuff is going to, you know, play out very differently depending on what the issues are, what the challenges have been, what kind of traumas each of these people are bringing into the relationship, what their families of origin look like. and figure therapists talking about family of origin, talking about the people that raised you, the environment that you grew up in as a child, where you came up.

14:06This is going to be very different and unique to you as an individual than your partner. Even if you find somebody that you feel like, we're vibing so much, we have so much in common, we have shared values, we have a shared dream about what we want to do with our lives. Whatever happened in the first 18 to 26 years of your life is going to be very different than your partner's. And now when you come together, You're trying to like find a way to combine this stuff. And it can be really, really hard if you're unable to identify, you know, core pieces of the dynamics that shaped who you are. And if someone has vastly different family of origin stories, even if you feel like, oh, we grew up in the same town and we have like, you know, similar cultures, you might have a different religious background or there might be different experiences that could be very different, but it could seem similar.

14:55but if someone has an extreme family of origin difference than their partner but they're vibing they're connecting they're having a fun time together there's chemistry there's all these different things what do they need to look out for in order to have the right conversations or is it a matter of just saying okay i accept you for this is your beliefs and your values and i'm going to be okay with it not try to change you how do people navigate that in relationships when we figured out oh please let me know i'm kidding but you know if if you're entering a relationship and um chances are it's because of a lot of the stuff that you talked about at first it's usually pretty good and a lot of people have heard that phrase honeymoon phase yes um endorphins are running high oxytocin is rushing throughout your body it's the stuff that makes you feel good dopamine you feel satisfied you feel like you've achieved something um You know, couples that get together and initially just stay together because of the feel goods.

15:55They are, I think, neglecting something very important is how do we navigate when we feel bad? What do we each do when we're faced with challenges, when we get angry or upset or hurt by something? And this is like a key difference that I think people could benefit from exploring a little bit more when they first get together with someone. And I know it's difficult to do this very explicitly, just like over coffee. But it's like, how do you respond to anger? How do you respond to a disagreement? Some big differences I see in families of origin. Some families, when somebody's mad or when some kind of issue comes up, everybody withdraws, everybody shuts down and they don't talk about it.

16:35And then they reconvene at some point. And, you know, some families just brush things under the rug and they carry on as though nothing happened. and they do small gestures to let each other know that I'm okay now. Are you okay? But they don't actually talk about it and they move forward. Was that your upbringing or your experience? A little bit, a little bit. And then some families, some other families, when there's disagreements or challenges, they shout it out. They fight it out. They talk about it in the moment. Right. And it could be because the leaders of the family, the parents, or it could be some other significant people, they've decided we're going to confront this right on and we're going to challenge each other and get it sorted and we're not going to go to bed angry.

17:13you know all these different ways that families exist I don't want to say one is right one is wrong one's better or whatever but they are very different so if you come from a family that rushes things under the rug and then next week you just act like nothing happened and that's how you move on but your partner comes from a family that they want to talk about the problem right now that's going to be pretty challenging to navigate if you don't figure out first how can we meet each other somewhere in the middle so we can you know leave space for the different ways that both of us have learn to figure out conflict.

17:44Yeah. It sounds like emotional agility is one of the skills or tools that so many of us could learn to master more of that will benefit us in every area of life, but obviously in our intimate relationships. I remember in all of my previous relationships, I'm currently engaged, but in all of my previous relationships, I never really had those hard conversations early on. It was a lot of what you talked about. This feels good. We're having fun. Let's keep feeling good. And whenever there was moments of, oh, this doesn't feel good. This feels kind of off. And I didn't know how to communicate and they didn't know how to communicate.

18:25It just seemed to continue to get worse and worse over time because we didn't have the tools. I didn't have the emotional agility. They didn't. We didn't have the language. We didn't know how to communicate effectively and create a safe space. And we both had our own traumas and all these different things that we brought to the table. In my current relationship to my fiance, when I entered the relationship with her, I made a request. I said, I would really love to. I said, I've been doing therapy and healing over the last couple of years from all my past. And I would really love to enter a relationship differently and do it in therapy.

19:02Are you open to this? And she was all in. And it was probably the best decision I've made in any relationship is to enter the relationship in couples therapy together. I was doing individually. She was doing individually for her own life. But our therapist was kind of like blown away that we were doing this because she was like, I'd never seen this in like 30 years. It's usually when there's like challenges where people do this. And it has alleviated so many potential challenges that I see could have come up. And I'm very grateful for that. And I'm not saying it's all perfect, but it's been incredibly peaceful because we've entered therapy together.

19:41What are the main benefits that couples get out of entering therapy when there's nothing wrong? And also when there are challenges, like what are the benefits of doing it when things are great and you feel good versus how we're really struggling and we got to get some help? Ooh, juicy question. And while you're talking, I had a very similar reaction to what you shared about the therapist. Like, wow, there's music to my ears to hear that people are entering a relationship wanting to talk about the hard stuff right off the bat. Instead of waiting until a time where they've already lost respect for each other.

20:16And still waiting for a time that they've already said very hurtful things to each other that they cannot take back. But couples entering therapy, when things are feeling good, you still love each other. You still like each other. I think that's a huge benefit is both of you are still very much 100 % wanting to make this work. And it's not coming from a place of we need to fix this. It's let's keep what is lovely about this thing that's blossoming between us going for as long as we both shall live. Right. So, you know, in couples therapy, some of the benefits that come, whether you're feeling good or even if you're not feeling so good, is you start diving a little bit deeper into your family of origin stuff.

20:54A lot of people haven't really explored that. for those that have been in individual therapy first and they're coming together, probably chances are that you did talk about some of these things. But now in couples therapy, it's a chance to talk about it together where you can learn about these things of each other. And you start figuring out how your parents or whoever it was that raised you had some kind of contribution to how they molded your idea of what loving relationship is, your idea of how to resolve conflict. And you start kind of maybe exploring how their communication styles that weren't so healthy have impacted the way that you show up or don't show up in relationship.

21:31When you're in this feel good state and you enter therapy together when nothing is wrong, it gives you a chance to be able to really process stuff that may have felt wrong in your individual lives together. You're at a pretty, what I say, healthy baseline of emotional focus. If you're not heightened, then you're able to process. I think all of us can relate to this in different contexts. For example, show up for work or you go to school. If you're really upset by something, it's a little bit harder to focus and get into problem solving mode. It's a little bit more difficult to get your thoughts together so that you can put together whatever it is that you need for this assignment.

22:10But when you are in a good place, when you're mentally stable, when you're emotionally stable, when your needs are taken care of, it's a lot easier to go in there and get it, whatever that means. And it allows you to get to a place where you can learn how to focus on emotions when they become heightened, when you're not in a heightened place in that moment. It allows us to explore the impacts of our words, our behaviors on somebody else versus focusing on what my intention was. Why didn't say that to hurt you? You know, like, It's easy to say that and get defensive when you yourself are very emotional.

22:44Yes. But if you and your partner can explore and discuss and talk about, this is the way that this kind of communication style affects me, it's a lot easier to say that and get into that when you're feeling fine. When you're in a loving place. Yeah. And again, going back to kind of this emotional agility and learning how to navigate emotions with less triggering. And it's usually the traumas of our past that cause us these triggers, these feelings of I'm not safe. You said this thing. I'm not safe. this doesn't feel good, as opposed to being able to distance ourself from these emotions and look at it differently and not take things personally, we tend to self-sabotage.

23:20And that's why I believe that therapy is just such a wise tool and investment. And, you know, growing up as a man, as an athlete, as a male growing up in Ohio, I was never able to express my emotions of sadness or fear or worry or concern without being made fun of. Or at least that's the memory that I have, you know, from just other kids and school and teammates, you know, just growing up in school. It just wasn't acceptable to express emotions in a healthy way. I'm not sure what that was like for you growing up, if you felt safe to be able to express your emotions or if you were told, you know, don't cry or whatever it might be.

24:02But for me, it took me a long time to unwind and feel emotionally safe. And so I would self-sabotage and I would be around people that would self-sabotage because they didn't have the tools. And that's why I'm just a big fan of having therapy and guidance and support. It's not weak. It's wise. And, you know, if people go to BetterHelp.com slash Lewis, they can learn more about this. But I'm curious, why do you think so many of us self-sabotage in relationships around love? We want love, but then we either push it away or sabotage it when there is a good thing that's happening or that seems to be happening.

24:42Why do we self-sabotage? Is it a lack of emotional agility? Is it that trauma stored within us that we haven't processed healthy yet? Is it we just don't know how to communicate our feelings? I think a lot of that is probably involved in the answer. And you kind of hit on this answer earlier in our conversation already. We generally accept the treatment and the love that we believe that we deserve. Oh, that is powerful. Yeah, just a callback. You already said this, and it's very true. Anytime somebody's talking about the self-saboteur or self-sabotage, it happens because we're allowing, like I said, the treatment that we think that we deserve.

25:21And this can very often be rooted in trauma. trauma unresolved unhealed leads to us feeling like we deserved it you know that that there's an increasing shame around it too that i'm a bad person so bad things happen to me that's the only way that i can make sense of this and this all of this makes it so important to get into a place where we can process our trauma learn to exist live thrive harmoniously with the truths of terrible things having happened to us but accepting absorbing embodying this idea that terrible things may have happened to us, but it's not because we're terrible, not because we deserved them, but because there are many things that happen in this world that are unexplainable, that are outside of our control.