This KEEPS 90% Of People Single! (BIGGEST DATING MISTAKES) | Matthew Hussey & Jay Shetty

if you are getting crazy nervous on a date you're already that's already a reflection of the fact that you've valued the wrong things one of the biggest problems is people falling for people really quickly yes falling in love too fast where it's because they went on a couple of great dates with a guy and they can look at the date and go he was amazing and you you should have seen what he did and how he was on the date and all of that and the thing i have to always break down is that may not have been about you it is about something he wanted you to feel by the end of the date and not that you know you i i'm a i kind of loathe this culture we have right now where everyone's a narcissist yes like we caught we're so quick to like label yeah he's a narcissist she's a narcissist like i'm like not ever like we all have a narcissistic streak absolutely and we all exhibit narcissistic behaviors at times that doesn't mean we're a diagnosable narcissist but a narcissistic streak we all have early in dating and to differing degrees is the desire to impress yes rather than connect and so we go on a date with someone and you know at the height of it if someone's really on the extreme end they will give the greatest date of someone's life yeah and that person goes away and they're like this guy is amazing or this person and they they may have put on an amazing date but you you know nothing yet and what's cool about your wife's you know going through that process with you is you know i can imagine for her it's almost like well i want to see how you are in week four yeah or i want to see how you are in month three yeah or and until you've been there you really don't know how great of a partner somebody is gonna be yeah and that that's what i mean by you know when you ask me about what i've really learned about love and and i talked about valuing the wrong things that's one of the big ways that it shows up if you are getting crazy nervous on a date you're already that's already a reflection of the fact that you've valued the wrong things because you're valuing this person's looks or their status or what you perceive them to be but you can't you're not valuing them in a relationship or in relation to you which is defined by how much they give how they connect with you how they relate to you how they see you yeah all of that stuff is it completely is you're a zero yeah so how can you be nervous if you're valuing the right things you can only be nervous if you're valuing the wrong things if that to me is the key to eliminating early nerves in early dating is that there is i almost feel a little fatalistic about it which is funny coming from someone who gives advice in this area for a living because you know i i do believe that we can influence situations with what we do but we do have to have a bit of a dose of fatalism that the thing that didn't pan out wasn't the thing the person who's still great in week eight is showing you the right things but if they suddenly ghost you in week nine then it doesn't mean they would have been great in week 16. yeah yeah yeah they're like oh but they were the one and i just i don't know what i need closure you have closure that action was closure what they showed you is they had eight good weeks in them yeah that's interesting yeah that's interesting it's it's and it's the same as you'd say in sport like if you if you i'm just i was just thinking about sport while you were saying that it's the idea of like a player may have one good season in him or her and then that player may have had 10 good seasons in him or her and sometimes we have these players where we're like oh she's going to be the next or he's going to be the next and then all of a sudden they don't give you that season and in sports we get closure by just going all right they had potential but they didn't make it but you're right in love and life it's a lot hard to have that mentality of like they gave me eight good weeks but they didn't make it well you and you sit there and you obsess over someone who just left you going you obsess over what they could have been yeah that's what it is could have you know this was so promising they were everything that i was looking for this could have been and anytime you you someone breaks up with us you know the heartbreak is the loss of the life we thought we were going to have with someone this is this is what it could have been this is what it should have been yeah and my answer to that is it would have been if it should have been and could have been yeah then it would have been you're literally you're grieving over something that was not it by definition it wasn't meant to happen because it didn't happen yes yeah yeah it didn't happen so this idea that it it was supposed to or it should have is is myth fantasy it's science fiction yeah but i feel like in relationships we have this fantasy mind that's already written the script and the book and the trilogy before the second date is over and so it's almost like relationship seems to be like the one area of our life where we write decades into the future and we can't help ourselves because we almost think that that and it's almost like you're living what you're saying is you're living off the fantasy not even of the reality that's right in front of you and so even when you're on a date with them you're not even there because you're in your fantasy land and of what you think it is and that's where in in so many ways everything that you are you know your expertise in mindfulness and everything you've learned there is so important in dating because in dating you have to be on the date you're on mindful dating is be on the date you're on don't be on date two but really you're not you're on date 32. yeah don't your mind has to be on date two with your body yes and when people don't do that that's where they start they start constructing a fantasy of where this relationship is going a fantasy of who this person is they know five percent of someone and they've built the other 95 out of extrapolation yeah oh he was really sweet in that moment you know obey's good with kids i basically i base that he's you know he's an amazing family man a bit you know and and we've all had the experience of meeting someone who is incredibly charming fun to be around you know you went away from like as men we sometimes go out and we meet another man and it's like we've been a date on a date with that man and you come home and you go he was so great you know i loved him to bits he was and he really charmed you and then six months later the that person has really lost their shine yeah because they're flaky you realize they don't actually show up when when you need them to you realize that it's they they kind of you know it's that the in the talented mr ripley there's that great line that's a great movie great movie there's a great line where matt damon is like you know he's become the new chosen best friend of of um jude lloyd's character uh his name jude lord's character's name is dickie and matt matt damon is is feeling suddenly shut out like out of nowhere he feels shut out when five minutes ago he was like this guy's my best friend and he loves me and he's so and he says to matt damon's girlfriend at the time he he's expressing how he feels that it you know or no he's not even expressing she sees the look on his face that he's sad that he no longer has this like friendship that feels real to him and she says the thing about dickie is when when he puts his attention on you it's like the sun is shining on you and then the attention moves on and it's very cold yeah and and that's the experience of a lot of those people but when you're taking the five percent of the sun shining on you and you use it to build the 95 percent that you cannot possibly know you can't know who this person is when your brother gets sick and you need to travel to the hospital to be with that person and you need support in that moment you can't know how that person is when you're having an anxious moment and you need someone to show love and compassion towards you and this anxiety that you can't seem to control and what you really need is a loving teammate to be there with you and not to judge you you can't know what this person is like in year three of a relationship when the you know you need to make a shift in your sex life because it feels like that part has become staid but you need to work together to figure out you don't know what that person is like in those stages so so thinking that you have all the answers because you've been on even 10 or 15 dates with this person and had a wonderful time is a is a fallacy a fantasy there's a great um the the relationship itself is about every stage of it and the effort that's put in and there's a there's a story from bukowski where he he slept with a prostitute every romantic story begins with begins this way he's lived with a prostitute and she um he woke up to her having stolen his poetry and he was so upset so mad terrible yeah and um he wrote about it and he wrote a piece that was all about how you could take anything take my money take the other stuff in the in the apartment take it all but please not my anything but my poetry and the whole piece finishes with the line and then god said crossing his legs i see where i have created a great many poets but not so very much poetry and the the idea is that you know the person who has potential in a relationship is the poet the poet everyone's a poet not many people writing poetry yeah writing is the more difficult part a lot of people who are great on a date very romantic very charming they're a poet on a date the poetry is the relationship and and you shouldn't you know bukowski was upset because his poetry was taken the thing he'd worked on and that's how it should be in a relationship is don't don't get upset because you lost a poet poets are a dime a dozen poetry is rare people who are willing to write the poetry of a relationship people who are willing to stick it with you for a year two years five years 10 years that's really rare and and we need to start valuing the poetry far more than we value the poet yeah i love that what a beautiful analogy let's let's talk a bit about that poetry because i feel like what's amazing is we convince ourselves more of the fiction when you are lusting after that person's looks fame prestige whatever whatever they have that you're attracted to it's almost like then even if they do a million bad things like you said about the guy playing the guitar or whatever it is it's like you're like oh but he's so or she's so whatever but tell us a bit about what to look out for so when people are out there and i know what i love about what you do is that and i love this conversation by the way so far because it's it's it's philosophical and it's real but you're great at getting practical too and i see that in all the work you put out what's some of the practical things that people can look out for i know so many friends who are in early relationships or just started to date someone or finally met someone what can they look for in those moments or is it looking for anything i mean maybe that's even the wrong place to start i think it's so we have a duty early on to bring our best to the table in as much as we can we're all going to make mistakes we're all going to have anxious moments or jealous moments or moments where we let our insecurity get the better of us moments where we let our anger get the better of us everyone's going to have these moments but we want to try and put our best foot forward but i always think that we learn a lot in the moments where you have your first fight or you reveal something about yourself and you see how they react to it you know do they react with compassion or is there immediate judgment and and and i don't mean a moment where you kind of try and perform yeah i mean a moment where you genuinely are brave enough to let someone in and be seen yes does this person do they see you do they acknowledge you and do they show compassion and curiosity about why you are that way and what's happened in your life to get you there do they really are they looking to figure you out and who you are is a wonderful wonderful sign because a lot of people are just in a relationship and they're sleepwalking yeah they're just they're they're enjoying it they're enjoying the fruits of the relationship but you don't get the impression someone's really trying to get to know you you don't feel seen by that person the person who's actually asking questions of you the person who's looking to understand the good and the bad in you and who elevates the good and soothes the bad that's something very beautiful to look out for the person who can come back and say sorry as of course and i apply the same standard to to both sides yeah of course but the person who can who can come back and say sorry you know again we we all when i'm when with one of my staff in my company when i say you know when i give them a difficult piece of feedback i don't expect them to smile in that moment yeah i don't expect them to like take you know in i would hope that they don't react in a really negative or toxic way but i don't expect them to have an easy time with that but if that person can go away over the next few hours or days and then come back and say you know i really thought about what you said and i'm gonna work on that that's something to look for because you can really like that person if you're both that kind of person you can work with that person yeah that's someone you can genuinely have a relationship with because it's not a relationship that's based on perfection or never having an argument but it is based on two people who are humble enough to genuinely own their mistakes or to own the areas where they want to get better i'm always looking at the ways people argue and whether they whether they're trying to do damage in an argument yeah or whether they're trying to rebuild in an argument and if you're with someone that every time you come out of an argument you feel like they lacerated you and there's you come out of an argument bleeding every time you know and you're like that why did they have to say that incredibly nasty thing and it's one thing if they come back 10 to an hour later and say or even a day later and say i truly regret having said that to you and i will do better but if they weren't even acknowledged that that was a really toxic way to have an argument and that was a really nasty thing to say then that's a problem because this is a relationship that's not going to soothe you yeah it's going to create more and more wounds so that i would say is an important thing and and two people genuinely genuinely at the core of it operating as a team what do you what do you need and can i tell you you know you're working really hard right now can i understand what your goal is in doing this and seek to understand that and where that's coming from for you and why that's important but can i also voice to you that i'm not feeling very loved right now and that i'm i you know maybe is just my insecurity or maybe that you know but i or maybe i don't have some enough as much many things going on in my life right now as you do in yours but i know one of the effects is it's creating some anxiety for me and it's making me feel like you don't love me as much as i love you you know it you want an environment where you can have that real conversation and it it then to me a relationship is no longer about right and wrong it's about the conversation can the conversation be had that to me is one of the greatest signs of a relationship you should hang on to yeah is can the relationship be had and can it be had in a beautiful and productive and loving way yeah because that's all that you know um david brooks said marriage is a 50-year conversation right is that conversation does it feel good yeah doesn't always feel comfortable but does it feel like this is a conversation that is making me better yeah or is it a conversation that's always making me worse yeah i love that and and i think it's it's such a vicious cycle though sometimes because i find that you get into an argument like you said which i think the first argument is such a great uh like it's such a great marker to put down as let's let's reflect on this i think that's such a great way of putting it that you said and if you look at that often what happens is the person reacts badly it's natural you react badly too and then you're waiting for that person to make up and that person's waiting for you to make up and then maybe you go ahead and put the first hand in but then now they deal with the second bad and now you're waiting again and i feel like we get lost in this like waiting game and i kind of got to a point where i was just like i want to make sure that i am leading this conversation so a conversation with me and my wife always have is i'll always check in with her and be like is this relationship going in the direction you want it to go in like is this going in the direction is this relationship what you want it to be and if it's not what do you want it to be and what are you willing to do to get there because and i'll always be like well this is not how i want the relationship to be and this is what i wanted to be and i felt like that conversation for me is really healthy and i'm always happy one thing that i've got to right now and i think my wife has this in different parts of our relationship i'm always happy to take the responsibility for the quality of the relationship because i'm in it in the same way as i'm with my company in the same way as i'm for this podcast the same as them for anything it's like it's easy to it's easy to sit there and go well what are you bringing to the table and and i realized at one point where i was like if i care about stuff i've got to be okay with grabbing onto the reins and the funny thing is i started to realize that that actually there are plenty of times when my wife does that she just does it in different areas that i don't notice and so it can feel like i'm carrying the burden but actually that's not true i'm i'm taking responsibility where i thrive and actually she's taking responsibility responsibility where she thrives and i don't even notice that and that's when i started to feel healthier rather than like i was like well where you show up like what are you doing and uh i remember when i was a monk the the teachers would always tell us that you know you may sit in a class with a non-charismatic teacher so they were like some of the monks are not gonna be the most charismatic the most attentive the most like dynamic teachers of the the the text and the spiritual scriptures and they were like but if you're a student that's ten out of ten even if the speakers are one out of ten in presentation you're going to get lots but if you're a one out of ten and the speaker's ten out of ten then they're lifting you up but by the way if you're at a one out of ten and they're at a one out of ten that's all you're gonna get and it's kind of like what your friend said about the bag of milk you know the idea the idea of like taking your own responsibility for if you want to be in a relationship i'd love to hear your thoughts on that yeah but that speaks again you're so right jay and it's truly beautiful that you have that in your relationship and it's and it's also brave because talking those conversations are not easy they and people can say things in those relationship in those conversations that can scare us they could say well i'm not happy because i want it to go in this direction yeah i've heard that too yeah like you know or i didn't realize you were unhappy in that way or i didn't realize you felt like that though it takes a lot of bravery to have conversations like that and i commend you for that and i and i think that's one of the things a lot of people aren't willing to do is step bravely into an area where they could be criticized um but i i think it is one of the most important aspects of a relationship is being able to do exactly that so no i think it's i think it's a stunning thing well it's uncomfortable like you're saying it's not and and i'm not sharing is like we've perfected and we've got it right i'm just saying that that's what we've had to do in order to like you know we're only at year five year eight in our relationship yeah five in marriage but it's like that's what we've just i've had to find these what you're saying like the 50-year conversation and the idea you're saying of having these like i'm just i've noticed that without these things you could go years without changing anything but speaking of what you said with the the idea of the monks that to me goes back to the you know what i was saying about timing being important yeah i do believe when you go into a relationship with genuine purpose and even when you go into dating with genuine purpose you you know you go on a dating app because a lot of people out there listening to this won't be in relationship they'll be right now in the crapshoot of dating apps trying to figure out how to navigate when we're intentional we bring a different energy to the things we do we bring a different energy to a person and in a relation in early dating i think that when you're really intentional and when you really are like i'm looking for a real connection here you don't actually judge people as quickly yeah you don't dispose of people as quickly where you just go wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong you you start actually looking for what could be right you start and i'm not saying ignoring abusive and toxic behavior i'm just saying those superficial things we just you know decide no they don't meet this checklist they don't meet this one or whatever we lose that because what we're looking for is is deeper and we start genuinely seeking to like we're on a date and we start going let me really find out who this person is yeah like let me really see them and let me not be judgmental of them so quickly and and look to understand them and the the reward for that is that this person now actually feels seen by you yeah that's great advice and they now give you a different energy than they may have given on the last 10 days yeah you suddenly they blossom on the date differently because of the energy in front of them there's a mitch album wrote a line about you know if the culture isn't serving you then you have to be brave enough to create your own culture and in dating for so many people i you know i get all the complaints about dating these days you know it's superficial it's no one everyone's flaky no one goes on real dates no one's trying no one's really committing no one wants a real relationship it's like okay so what you're describing to me is what you perceive to be a culture yeah that's not working for you yeah but if that culture isn't serving you then create your own culture that surrounds you and and your culture it can be powerful not for the world necessarily because in for that there needs to be a combined cultural shift but in your micro life in your micro problems and opportunities the culture you create will have an impact on the people around you yeah and it the same way you know i said if you go into a room at a party and you say i hope this part is good well now you're a victim to however this party is yeah you know if everyone seems kind of closed off and mean and you know there's cliquey and it's like oh god then you go home and you say oh my god that party was so you know it was one of those horrible parties but if you go in and you say i'm gonna at the very least be responsible for a part of this party yes i'm gonna go in and i'm gonna give the love and the energy and the and the and the compassion and the authenticity that i would love for people in this room to join me in giving some will some won't and by the way that's also good because it'll help you find your crowd right yeah so you you find your crowd by being the thing you want to be not by hoping that your crowd elicits it from you completely you found your crowd online by going out and being an energy that you wanted to be first and then that crowd noticed you it's like a lighthouse all the ships start knowing where to come home because they see the you know they see the lighthouse that that for me is that's one of the most beautiful things about giving energy early on i see dating you know not just relationships but i see people in dating these days it's the game is who can try less who can be cooler who can be more indifferent and and that's honestly not the way to do it that's certainly the way to attract someone of a lower frequency i love that yeah right you can certainly attract someone who wants the game who wants the who's got the demons that make them chase someone who's not into them yeah you know and there are plenty of people with those demons but you don't want to be in a relationship with a person like that because for sure a person like that the moment you stop playing hard to get and you turn around to meet them they're not going to be interested in you anymore because their demons will tell them this person likes us now they're not they this person is no longer cool to us yeah they were only called to us as long as they didn't like us so you can't ever so messed up yeah but it's you know it's that uh that kraut tower marks thing i wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member yeah that describes dating insecurity amongst people like that is i wanna that person doesn't want me they must be a catch yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly and and so what we have to do is give when we give a little more energy in dating and say you know what this person who i've known for five minutes maybe i'm not feeling much energy here but i'm just going to give some energy i'm going to give an amount of energy i'm willing to lose right that's a key way of looking at it yeah what you don't do is you keep trying with someone who's not giving you equal energy back that's that then becomes masochistic right but giving an amount of energy you're willing to lose i always think about that in every interaction that's so true yeah given amount you don't mind losing yeah it's like going into the casino and playing like roulette it's like all right i'm in vegas i'll give like a hundred bucks yeah and then i'm not spending anything else here in these casinos that's it yeah you know for me it's normally like ten bucks because i just i i'm not a gambler but you just decide what am i happy to lose and it's the same with energy it's you know i'm dating right now i want to find someone amazing someone beautiful i'm going to give to everyone i interact with an amount of energy i don't mind losing and some people i'm going to i'm going to bring out the people who who now are willing to give it back because all of a sudden they'll they might be jolted out of their little coma that they've been in because they're disillusioned with dating and they feel like no one's trying and so they went into their shell but they now they see you with a different level of warmth and playfulness and and and just positivity and they go huh who is this this makes me feel good and then they come out a little bit and all of a sudden you see who they are you wake them up a little bit and then there's a bunch of people you won't and that's okay because you were willing to lose that much energy yeah but what people do instead they do a far more dangerous thing of being afraid of the rejection from people that they approach or talk to in the first five minutes god forbid i get rejected in the first five minutes but then they'll meet someone where they have a bit of connection and chemistry but who isn't trying who isn't giving them equal energy and they'll keep pouring energy into that person month after month after month when they're not getting the same in return yeah and they think that's safer than going out there and getting rejected by a new person yeah but actually this is the dangerous one yes they're being rejected in five minutes by someone who doesn't even know you who who on an app how much can someone really reject you anyway yeah and we all know our experience we've all chosen people in life who on an app we might have swiped right past absolutely right so we know from our own personal experience that if we get rejected on an app it doesn't even mean that person wouldn't like us in real life totally yeah but we're so afraid of that rejection that's mortal fear is that rejection and yet continuing to waste months or years on someone who's who's giving us unequal energy is something people happily do they spend that time like it's nothing because that's the reason because it feels safe because it feels like there's something at least there's some connection there's some comfort well there's a couple of things it's firstly it's comfortable right it's what i know doesn't mean i'm happiness and comfort very different things it's not happy i'm not happy i'm not getting my needs met but it's comfortable yeah right so i'll stay in it for that reason it's the fear of i'll never find anyone again which is a fallacy because you found this person yeah you did it already yeah yeah you know and by the way this person's not so unique that they're the only person in the world that's going to find you attractive yeah yeah right like they're attracted to you because you're attractive yeah but that's the crazy thing right we have this massive paradox between there's now unlimited choice more than ever you feel like you have way more choice than you had before but then we have limitless fear to go with that that we may not find anyone ever again yeah i talk in the book about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion i love that yeah tell us about it so idiot compassion is what our friends do it's like you know someone breaks up with you and you're like oh he was a jerk even though we know that like this has happened the last three times because there's certain ways you behave in the relationship that lead to this outcome or you know you didn't get the promotion you wanted and we know why that happened because it keeps happening to you and we say oh your boss is doesn't see your talent when we really know what's going on but we don't want to rock the boat we think we're being supportive but it's not really supportive and so you know it's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to it might be you but we don't we don't say that that's idiot confession right wise compassion is holding up that mirror but the clear mirror not the dusty mirror and it's holding up that mirror and saying i'm gonna help you to look at yourself in a way that maybe you haven't been willing or able to see and i think you're gonna like what you see because it's going to help you navigate through the world in a much smoother way yeah and maybe you will have to make some changes which people uh you know people usually come into therapy and they're like i want things to change and what they want to change is someone else or something else they don't realize that they are going to have to make some changes yeah and i and i want to say like you're the protagonist in the story you're going to have to make some changes yeah absolutely and one of the things i think we struggle with that is i was talking about this with a friend the other day we were on a walk and we were saying that she was being really vulnerable and open she's amazing i know she listens to the podcast you know who you are it's her name but it's it's the feeling of we want people to be honest with us but we struggle to be honest with people yeah so it's a weird like it's a weird circle because we it's like me saying lori i want you to be really honest with me about how this podcast is going but then when my friend asked me how their podcast is going i'm not telling them the truth yeah but i'm expecting you to tell me the truth yeah and so almost we become demanders of the truth but not givers of and then that continues that circle if that makes sense and so how how do we actually open ourselves up to create space for friendships like that because i almost think in the same way as you're saying we're creating those scenarios in our life again at work or in relationships yeah we are inviting idiot compassion into our life that's right because we're not ready for it almost right right we have to be able to hear it i see this so much with couples that i see so a lot of times um you know somebody will say and i see this most typically in like a heterosexual couple where uh the woman says to the man i want you to be really vulnerable with me i want to understand your inner life i want you to open up to me and then he does and he starts crying and she is frozen you know she's like well i you know be careful what you're not this one right yeah i didn't i didn't mean like that [Laughter] right or if someone's like or if the thing that they're being truthful about is something about something going on between the two of you and people are so afraid to share that so maybe they'll be open about something out there but if it's like there's something i want to talk to you about us and the person says yeah i want to hear i want you to be really open and honest with me until you really say i notice this happens between us and here's something about you and the person's like whoa i didn't want to hear that right so we're so uncomfortable with other people's truth you don't have to agree with somebody else's feelings but you have to know that their feelings are valid which doesn't mean that you have the same feelings there's a distinction it's almost like the difference between when somebody really wants someone to forgive them and i always say like there's a woman in the book she wants her adult children to forgive her for what she had done their estranged from her they and i said you know what you can't you're asking for something called forced forgiveness that that people are not going to forgive you because it will make you feel better and sometimes not forgiving is okay it's okay if your children never forgive you maybe they will have compassion for you maybe they will see you as the mother that they want now even though you couldn't be that then um we have to learn how to forgive ourselves but so many times if someone says i'm really upset about this we say we want to hear that but we don't know how to um how to let it in how to be open to it yeah and how do you in the in the therapy room and in your life and when you're advising people people live or sometimes we assume that people live very problem driven lives so when they come and see you they feel they have to start with a problem yeah or sometimes when you see a friend you feel like you have to share something that's going wrong for there to be a conversation i feel like almost problems and wrongs have become better conversation starters or more i would say more comfortable conversation starters for people as opposed to something positive do you see that a lot is that you know what's so interesting i think that we have this weird dichotomy where on the internet everybody's posting all the positive things um in person everybody's sharing all the negatives so true yeah um and so there's not that balance i i think that a lot of the time we're we're kind of uh using our friendships to kind of download our problems but we're not actually listening when i was training i was doing my internship a clinical supervisor said you have two ears in one mouth there's a reason for that ratio i think we don't know how to listen and so sometimes uh we feel like when someone's telling us something that we need to problem solve for them um we don't know just how to sit with them and not fix it for them and we don't realize too that sometimes we're helping them by helping them to hear themselves more clearly yes and if we talk for them if we talk over them they can't hear themselves we're talking over their internal voice that that that last bit there at the end that you just mentioned is so powerful we're talking over their internal voice and actually simply listening to them allows them to hear themselves yes and ah you're so right i feel like my best conversations are definitely when i i can find the narrative just by being able to share and share and share because most of the time we share we we talk for two minutes the person giving the answer talks for eight and it's almost like you know and now it's okay now do i take that answer they don't quite understand me and then right it just kind of gets lost so how do we shift is talking about our problems useful with who is it useful and and when is it useful yeah i think you have to choose your audience yeah i think so many times people have had bad experiences let's say that growing up they had bad experiences and so then they end up choosing someone who will disappoint them and then they say see see what happens when i'm vulnerable see how that doesn't work um and and what happens is they they don't realize that they're repeating this pattern one thing that therapy really does for people is it helps them to see you are making choices that are are repeating that are helping you to repeat a pattern that is making you unhappy that is keeping you stuck and and people don't realize that they're doing that um there's a woman in the book who keeps hooking up with the wrong guys right um and including by the way one from the waiting room i don't mean in the waiting room it's not that exciting but but she meets him in the waiting room and i know because of her pattern that you know this is going to be a disaster and she keeps saying oh it's the guys it's this person it's that person and she doesn't realize that these people are so much like the people she grew up around and i don't mean that we're blaming people's parents because i think that most parents did their absolute best you know most parents really want to be a good parent but sometimes they didn't know how or they were very limited or there was some mental there was some mental health issues or whatever it might be and so they couldn't give their kids that that mirroring experience that you know is something that they would want in an adult relationship and so with her it takes her so long to realize that when she meets someone who is going to give her what she wants she's like i'm not attracted no chemistry right it's almost like like she doesn't know how to be around someone who will give her what she wants and there's a there's a learning process around well wait a minute just because something feels familiar like the person who disappoints you doesn't mean it's right you know that chemistry that she kept feeling was like oh you feel familiar come closer yeah it's like no the fact that you feel familiar should be a sign like let's try something different let's go into this place of unfamiliarity and it will be uncomfortable because you don't know the customs in this country you haven't been to this country before you're going to have to use your guidebook and and learn your way around a little bit but why don't you see what it's like over in that country right yeah absolutely what is your take on the elusive chemistry when people talk about it when they're partnerships and you know the way i've always understood it is i've always felt that when you look at chemistry and compatibility chemistry is something that i can feel multiple times a day with different people yeah i can feel it with the barista i can feel it with my personal trainer i can feel it with someone i'm just taking the train home with like chemistry is something i can feel over and over again compatibility is something i can't it's not as easily replaceable it took longer to build and it's something that i have with less people in the world in general yeah uh and and so for me i've i always look at chemistry as the elusive thing because i hear the same my friends will come back from dates and be like jay like but there was no chemistry and i'm like okay so tell me about that and how you've tackled helping people understand chemistry and and filter it better yeah so this is i i love that we're having this conversation because this is such an important part of relationship so many times people will say you know they went on a first date with somebody and they're like yeah no i had a really good time but there was no chemistry and i said well the having the really good time might mean that there's potential for chemistry yes um but what they do is because they're on the apps and they say oh well there's like 10 000 other people that i can date and they just keep recycling and recycling and recycling and they don't give something time or space to grow and chemistry sometimes happens right away and other times it takes time to grow so um there are these surveys that were done where where men and women were were followed um for 20 years from the moment that they went on a first date through marriages divorces you know all these things and what happened was a lot of people have revised their stories depending on what happened later so the people who um are happily married let's say a lot of them said you know well tell us about the first date when they're telling it now they say oh yeah there was instant chemistry but what they reported at the time was yeah i don't know maybe i'll go on a second date i don't know there's not a lot here but it built and so their story became there was instant chemistry right now the people who were divorced sometimes they would say oh i knew i never liked this person from the beginning and at the time they reported oh my god we had this amazing chemistry right so it's not very reliable that first time is what i'm trying to say yeah um it takes time so you you go on a first date or a first meeting with somebody and and you say did you did you have a good time would you like to spend another hour with this person and then see whether something develops sometimes it does a lot of the times it does a lot of the time it doesn't but you won't know until you give it some breathing room i should say too that you know there's a saying that we marry our unfinished business and what i mean by that is that a lot of times if you haven't worked through some of these um ways of being in relationship that didn't work very well for you you seek them out in other people without realizing it so the person will look very different let's say from your mom or your dad or whomever and yet um once you get to know that person you're like oh god you know like oh wait this this feels really like how i recognize that i didn't see that at all right so that's our unfinished business so you really gotta work through your stuff so that you can meet the person that you're gonna have true authentic chemistry with and not this kind of like chaotic chemistry with yeah chaotic chemistry is a really nice way to put it because yeah that's often what it is it's like everything's chaotic but we feel chemistry it's yeah it's sexy well people i have so much chemistry with this person even though i can't rely on this person or i'm always nervous i'm always on edge i never know where i stand with this person but we have so much chemistry yeah yeah it's just and it's crazy how i'd love to date back actually and i'm doing some research on it right now i'd love to hear if you already know it's something i'm i'm really interested in where that desire for chemistry ever even sourced like where it started like that one that we all have for wanting to feel chemistry like i wonder it was a movie or because i remember the first time i wanted a girlfriend was because i watched a movie yeah my favorite character like was attracted to this girl and i was like oh maybe i should have a girlfriend like i didn't you know i was a kid and i didn't even know what that meant yeah but it was just so cleverly planted into my mind that i didn't feel complete without a partner and and it's fascinating to me look at where these things started because sometimes they're just things that you've heard over and over again in movies or books or songs and yeah i mean i think that we we define chemistry as sort of like this instant magical thing um and and chemistry is is so multifactorial it's about you know what is this energy that goes on between the two of you and and how are you together in daily life not like on the vacation in tahiti right um so when people think about spending their lives with somebody it's about the day to day it's about how do we get through the hard things how do we listen to each other how do we deal with um the places that we disagree how do we deal with the differences between us because we think of chemistry as like that overlap like we we both love sushi and rollerblading and this movie and that book and you know and and we're vegan and you know whatever it is right um and that's not chemistry yeah chemistry is how do we inhabit the same space knowing that we're two separate human beings and how do we stay connected even with the space between us um yeah absolutely i love that that's yeah that's really powerful tell me about the uh tell me about dealing with the paradox of being perceived as someone who has all the answers but also is knowingly trying to grow in their own life like how does that paradox work for you yeah when it's like you know the perception not only of your clients now like you know you're gonna have a tv show about the book like the book's been so incredibly successful which is helping so many people how do you deal with that personally of that feeling of yeah i do have answers and i do know how to help people obviously people are being helped you are changing people's lives and at the same time you're like yeah but i'm still learning and i've still got to work on this and i'm still working on this how do you deal with that paradox or how do you yeah well well that's interesting because so in the book i follow four very different patients where i'm their therapist and then the fifth patient in the book is me yeah as i go through my own therapy with my therapist and a lot of people say well why you know are you insane you know why why would you do that before before the book came out i think it's really smart well the reason i did it is because i really felt like if my patients were going to be so vulnerable i felt it would be disingenuous to be the expert up on high helping these people when i was going through something in my own life and and we all struggle and and so i say at the very beginning of the book that my greatest credential is that i'm a card-carrying member of the human race and it was so important for me to show how we're all more the same than we are different and i think that that makes what people can learn from the book so much more powerful and impactful um what's interesting though is that even though i was very sure that i wanted to do that once the book um so you know i i was supposed to be writing a different book i was supposed to be writing a book about happiness and and it just felt so empty to me because i feel like happiness is a byproduct of living our lives in a fulfilling way in a meaningful way is really what we all hope for but happiness is the goal in and of itself felt like a recipe for disaster so i felt like it was just i was i was a therapist and i was trying to write this book about happiness and it was making me depressed ironically i called it the miserable depression depression-inducing happiness book and so i ended up not writing that book and then i ended up writing this book and and i thought like maybe three people would read it because everybody said oh you know nobody wants to nobody wants to read a book about therapy and it's not it's a book about the human condition um and so once the book was turned in and the sales team got it at the publisher and everybody started like passing the book around and i thought oh no maybe like because i thought like three people read it and i'm like maybe 300 will read it maybe 3 000. i didn't realize like we're like 10 months on the new york times list now and so well thank you i say that only in the context of um if i had known how many people were going to be reading it i think i would have hesitated to be so open i let it rip i mean i i do not come off well i'm very just here's what happened and i just let it go um and so i'm really glad that i didn't clean myself up because i think that if i had yeah people wouldn't have read i think that the reason that people are responding to it and seeing themselves in these stories is because we're all so real in the book you know nobody's cleaned up in the book yeah i agree i i think that's beautiful and i i i do think that that message is so much stronger today as well and i'm really glad that you didn't know how successful the book was gonna be it's great and it's funny though isn't it that we we feel that sometimes like you would and i'm glad you didn't and i know you didn't too because you're very happy sharing but it is weird that we think if that many more people were gonna see this i wouldn't what is it about that is that just more chances and odds of people having issues with us or challenging us like what is that that stops us from being more vulnerable the more people see us because i feel when you're not well known it's like you strive to be well known and then when you meet people who are well known they're almost striving for more privacy yeah you know it's like right i'm sure you see that in your work all the time i do i think that um people are afraid i mean i think there's shame there you know like that that as a therapist um you know letting people see me struggle yeah yeah and say you know here i i mean i do all the things with my therapist that my patients do with me so so you see me like i want to be liked by him and i google stalk him one night and you know i do all these things um and it's embarrassing um you know to because you think well people will think less of me people will think that i'm less competent or um you know whatever you imagine and that's not been the case at all yeah you know i think that people have said i you know i i i really i really value what you shared um i really respect you i admire you for that and and i think that that translates to people out in the world being more open with each other because the title of the book maybe you should talk to someone doesn't mean we should all go to therapy necessarily it means we all need to talk more to each other and so the more that i can model that for people if i can't you know walk the talk if i can't do what i'm asking people to do then there's a big gap yes but if i actually do it i think it helps people to say oh well if she can do it yeah then i can do it too absolutely absolutely and what have you seen are those patterns of clients that you find that you're working with that have seen the biggest transformations in their life are there patterns in those people that they have certain shared beliefs values work ethic habits that that help them take whatever advice you gave or other therapies have given them that have actually changed like what has been that kind of x factor that people have shared um i think that what happens is they release the story that they came in with and and sometimes it's these stories of you know um there's the content of what they're saying like here's what's going on in my relationship here's what's going on uh with my anxiety um and they have a story about it so they think that the content is the story but what i'm listening for is sort of the music under the lyrics so the lyrics are you know i'm having panic attacks the music is what is the underlying struggle or pattern that is getting you into this situation and once they can see that that can translate into everything that happens in their daily lives but i think it takes courage i think it takes so much courage for them to say i'm going to make changes i always like to say that insight is the booby prize of therapy that you can have all the insight in the world you can say now i understand why i'm struggling in this way now i understand why i have these arguments with my partner and i'll say well did you do something different yeah and they'll say well no but now i understand it you're not really doing the work because you have to do something different and i love this victor frankel quote that's in the book where he had written um between stimulus and response there is a space in that space is the power to choose our response in our response it lies our growth and our freedom so yes there might be difficult people but then the question is what is our role in that so why are we in that relationship or what is our role in making that relationship so chaotic so difficult so um there's so much tension in it why is that so what what is it that that we can do next time that person does that thing that triggers us can we have a different response because the response we keep giving is yielding yeah the same thing nothing's changing so when we talk about insight as the booby prize of therapy it's not just having the insight it's you have to make changes and you have to look that means that you can make changes you're not going to change the other person but your changes can influence another person so it's always like doing a dance right and so if you change your dance steps that person either has to change their dance steps too or they will fall flat on the floor or they can leave the dance floor yeah but the good thing is you changed your dance steps and that's the thing when you say what is the unifying thing that all of them have in common when they've made changes that have really really transformed their lives it's about they they chose different dance steps does your partner often feel distant and you struggle to connect do you feel like your partner nags you or is too demanding and you wish you had more space or if you're single does it often seem like when you're getting close to someone they become distant or even ghost you or do you frequently feel that people want too much from you do you experience problems in your current relationship or in a past relationship that seem to follow similar patterns if so then this video is for you [Music] today we're going to talk about the single biggest most consistent factor that's impacting all of your relationships that you've probably never heard of your attachment style your attachment style is something that developed in the first years of life and while it's estimated that around half of us have what's called a secure attachment style the rest of us have an insecure attachment style and that's where a lot of our relationship challenges come from now i'm going to ask you six questions and for each question there will be three options to choose from pick the option that most resonates with you and put a tick next to the corresponding column on your piece of paper ready here we go question one you're at a party or other social function and you see your partner interacting with someone in a way that seems flirtatious option one you take it in your stride because you trust your partner option two you become jealous and ask your partner to justify themselves or option three you don't say anything about it but withdraw from your partner maybe you're cold or distant the rest of the night so if you choose option one take it in your stride give yourself a tick in the c column if you choose option two become jealous put a tick in the a column and if you choose option three distance yourself from your partner put a tick in the b column see how this works question two when you start to feel close to someone you do what option one you enjoy the feeling and look forward to seeing where the relationship goes option two you start daydreaming about where and when your wedding will take place option three you put on the brakes to ensure things aren't moving too fast so if you chose option one you enjoy the feeling put a tick in the c column if you chose option two start planning your wedding put a tick in the a column and if you choose option three put on the brakes put a tick in column b now here's question three when it comes to relationships in your life option one you look to others to provide you with a sense of security option two you have more acquaintances than friends or a romantic partner but that's fine because you can take care of yourself option three you have a variety of relationships in your life and you enjoy being able to rely on others for support as well as having others rely on you if you choose option one others help you feel secure put a tick in column a if you chose option two you can take care of yourself put a tick in column b and if you chose option three you have a variety of relationships put a tick in column c question four the best relationships option one feel uncomplicated option 2 feel like a team option 3 feel safe now i know this is a harder one to choose from many of you but again pick your strongest response like if you were to rate these choose whatever is at the top of your list for option one feel uncomplicated give yourself a tick in column b for option two feel like a team give yourself a tick in column c and for option three if you're safe give yourself a tick in column a question five you're doing great by the way i sometimes are often worried that option one my partner will leave me option two my partner wants too much from me option three i sometimes worry about issues with my partner but generally i don't have big overall worries or anxieties about the relationship if you went with option one you worry your partner will leave you give yourself a tick in column a if you went with option two you worry your partner wants too much give yourself a tick in column b and if you went with option three no overall worries about the relationship give yourself a tick in the c column okay last question question number six when my partner and i disagree option one i generally feel comfortable expressing my thoughts and opinions option two i feel nervous to say how i feel option three i try to say as little as possible if you chose option one you feel comfortable expressing yourself give yourself a tick in column c if you chose option two you feel nervous to say how you feel give yourself a tick in column a and if you chose option three you try to say as little as possible give yourself a tick in column b now go ahead and hit pause if you need to tally your scores how many ticks have you got in each column now if you've tallied up your scores you'll probably see that you've got ticks in more than one column that's because most of us are not all one attachment style while we usually have one that's dominant we can show characteristics of other styles as well so if you have most of your takes under letter a it's likely of more of an anxious attachment style if you have the anxious attachment style this is for you and i want to give a shout out some of the following information on attachment styles is from counselor adam young who is a licensed clinical social worker you can check out his work so if that describes you again nothing to feel bad about here this is just information that you can use in a helpful way to become aware now if you scored mostly letter b in the quiz you likely have an avoidant attachment style according to estimates which again vary a bit about 20 percent of people have this style if you mostly answered letter c you have a primary secure attachment style this is the most common attachment style with estimates that around 50 to 55 percent of us have secure attachment so those are the attachment styles now incidentally you won't see many secure types portrayed in popular programming because they make for the least drama remember chandler from france his high anxiety and fear over losing moniker and his jealousy and reluctance to believe she truly loved him revealed his anxious attachment style you can also think of tony stark a gay iron man as a classic avoidant type remember how he would use his sarcasm and obsession with technology to try and keep people from getting close to him and avoid emotional interactions now that you know the attachment styles you can even play a game with your partner or friends watching shows and identifying the different characters styles so how do we take this information we learned from the test about our own attachment style and use it in a positive way in our current or future relationships here are three steps to doing that step one is to give yourself a chance to digest and process what you just learned there's a lot there now some of you will want to do that by yourself others process things by talking them out i'll advise you that if your partner wants to process by themselves and you want to talk it out maybe connect with a friend or other loved one you can talk to so you can give your partner a bit of space to process what they've learned step two is for you and your partner to share what you've learned about yourselves with the other person you're not going to focus on the relationship at this point you're going to take turns sharing what you've learned while the other partner just listens now if you're the listener i want you to resist the temptation to comment on what the other person is sharing your role at this point is only to listen if you need to say something you can acknowledge i hear you or yes i'm listening or what i'm hearing you say is and making sure that you're on the right path step three is going to be having that conversation where you discuss what you've learned about your attachment style and your partner's impact your understanding of the dynamics of your relationship i think this is an opportunity to exercise compassion hopefully now you have a greater understanding of what's behind a repeat pattern or a problem i really hope that these attachment styles are going to help you form more self-awareness and a deeper bond with the people in your life having this awareness allows you to connect with people with more compassion more love which will improve the quality and the health of all of your interactions i've been with my wife for six years now we've been married for three and all i'm trying to share is the journey and the process of figuring it out that's all i'm trying to share and when i she was the first guest on my podcast that i interviewed and the whole conversation was here's all the mistakes we made in our first three years of marriage like this is what we got wrong oh wow you went in that's what we talked about because i wanted people to hear how much stuff we've worked through yeah because that's the fun of it because when you can have fun working through stuff and people are hearing that yeah they're like oh my relationship's not so different now right because if all i'm seeing is the selfies and the happiness and all that kind of stuff so so for me that's that's where my expertise is my expertise is how do i share while i'm going through it and share with you just the experience i have so like i'm not giving advice to couples who have kids right because i've not been through that i don't know what that feels like when i go through it i'll figure it out and i'll share some so i'm sharing pre-marriage getting married the early years of marriage what i'm learning from that which also is a really hard part of the marriage i think so it is our first year was quite um interesting to see go on i mean it was just like we waited till we were married to have sex we hadn't lived together my career was really kind of started taking off and he went to grad school and it was like finding this balance of like who we are in so many different aspects but like knowing that divorce is not an option so it's like we have to focus and work on this and nobody they tell you oh marriage is work marriages work but nobody can explain it to you because every marriage is so different yep so it's good to hear that other people are explaining their first three years of marriage and the struggles that they'd been through something we did do on our honeymoon actually was read the five love languages have you read that i love that book i like you i've made videos on that book and like yeah there's like i've made like three videos on that book and i think gary chapman's a genius what are your love languages i believe your love languages are based a lot about how your parents love you oh interesting so so my lovely like you want what your parents didn't give you or you still want what they gave you both depending on how good or bad they're correct got it so mine was and this is how i traced it back i love my mom she's amazing and when my mom was raising me she sometimes couldn't spend a lot of time with me because she was working too okay but i knew that on my birthday she would always get me the gift that i wanted she would always get it no matter what it was and we didn't grow up with a lot but she would save up make sure that i had it and she would find it and she'd get it for me and it would just be one thing but it would always be the one thing i most wanted so like one year was like power rangers or something like that and i realized that i associated love with gifts so was that your number one that was my number one love language it is giving and getting yes so i love giving people grand gestures and i love receiving grand gestures but my wife her number one love language is quality time because her family on their birthdays and stuff would just time spent yeah they wouldn't go out to work that day her dad would stay home they would plan an activity or whatever something like that right and so spend time together so when we met i was like where's my gift like where is it it's like do you not love me and i would be giving her these grand gestures and gifts on her birthday and she'd be like i just want to spend time with you and okay i want you to break mine down go on i'm acts of service yes what does it mean that you're not giving or receiving i like getting acts of service like if you want to love me right acts of service well that's the hardest one right yours was amazing that is a talented man yeah i mean it's like you vacuums make the bed do the thing that i asked you one time and it's done wow that is impressive oh yeah active service is one of the hottest ones it hit oh so i'm hard to laugh no you're not just kidding i'm just kidding no no so that's me projecting my bias and how scary [Laughter] that's me going oh my god i'm so glad that i i could never do that i could never live up to that but no that's beautiful and that's what i mean that you are with a partner who understands that loves that is able to give that and that's great love languages are very important in relationships and justin's is time spent and physical touch okay those are stops so i just know that like i know what he needs and he knows what i need and i think that anybody who feels like they're not connecting with their partner should read that book 100 i love that book i recommend it to everyone and i think the biggest thing we should all notice is until you read that book and until you figure out love languages you are speaking different languages right and so it's like literally speaking to your partner in a language they don't understand right and so you could be doing everything like for example for you you know justin could be buying you like the best gifts in the world and taking on fancy holidays and all this kind of stuff but he's not doing extra service and you're gonna be like well now what doesn't he love me yeah exactly and he and he does like you may be with someone anyone who's listening and watching this right now you may have someone who loves you deeply you've just never articulated what your love language is you have to speak up you have to share it you can't no one can read in between the lines you can't expect that person to figure it out by looking at you you need to tell them this is how i feel most loved right this is what i need to feel loved and i see so many couples that get scared about saying this or doing this or they're it's like hard for your ego because being able to have enough vulnerability and openness to say to your wife i need you to tell me i've got this right like words of affirmation that i need words of affirmations and you know the ego goes oh no i don't really need that for my wife but you have to share it if you don't tell them that how are they going to know you've got to put your ego aside and be really open and honest everything you talk about on social media and through your videos is so emotional based and there's just a lot of like that inner work especially like with relationships but what about the physical aspect of it like physical like the intimacy and all of that do you ever touch on any of that ah let me think i've definitely talked about it from an abuse point of view right you're you're talking about from uh like when you're married sex is important yeah yeah right and i think that for me my understanding is like you have to have the emotional first before the sex can stay consistent correct and great it's so much easier to talk about that or go into that that's why i focus so much on my content on the other side right and my content is so heavily focused on the compatibility on the healing on the deep work because i'm like if people get this right they're gonna have amazing relationships they're gonna have amazing physical like everything's gonna be great but when you look at all these magazine covers and you'll always see like you know the seven things she wants in bed and there are three things and it's always those things like and that's what i love about what i've been able to do with video is that we've shifted the conversation the video's getting millions millions and millions of views but we're talking about stuff that actually is gonna make a difference whereas you telling someone like these are the three things she wants in bed like that's not gonna change your relationship if you aren't compatible if you don't connect if you don't speak the right love languages if you're not empathetic if you're not vulnerable like then that three list of this and seven this to that isn't going to do anything it's void and and that's where i'm trying to get to with people because i don't want people to use sex as a substitute for that and i don't want people to use sex as an excuse for that and i don't want people to use sex as a cover-up for not having any of that because i know having been in tons of relationships where it was just physical and that's all there was that's the only time it felt good it didn't feel good at any other time i didn't go home with a beautiful feeling in my heart and then when it's only about that that's also when it can be easily replaced right because that's easily changeable right and that's why i think so many people go through and i talk about my videos so much about cheating and loyalty because when it is just physical it becomes so much more easier to just disconnect and fall away yeah and now heartbreak yes what's your advice on heartbreak i know you have you have a video up it's like the five things people should do through heartbreak and one of them is like get rid of everything from the past and only focus on the present in the future yeah i like that's hard for people i like getting rid of visual triggers i think the challenge in a lot of our lives is that we're surrounded by the same sounds the same sights right and the same people that we were in our past and i see this with anything and i'm sure you felt this when you went deeper into your faith did your circles change 100 right when you went deeper into your faith did what you look at change 100 right so you look at my heart change your heart change because internal anxiety yes because for me when i transformed in my faith it was a transformation of my heart yes not about what i was actually doing or not doing correct and that's what i feel for anyone anyone that i've witnessed and observed go through transformation in their life their environments have changed and so for me a lot of us are making it harder for yourself it's like saying i want to start working out every day but i don't own any trainers right it's like that's not going to work it's like doing the opposite like i want to go on a diet but i'm going to keep chocolate cake in my refrigerator right like it's it's that so you're saying oh you're enabling i want to get over the past but i'm going to keep my exes sweater right next to me and i'm gonna keep all these text messages i can keep reading through again why do people go back and read text messages because i'm someone that broke their heart because nostalgia and imagination is more powerful right the feeling of nostalgia and this is in studies too like the research by nostalgia is you always think things were better in the past with something like that so you read a message you're like oh but they love me so much and now all you're doing is reality is here and you've got your own version of reality playing here so you're basically writing your own movie script up here when reality is telling you this and nostalgia is that script that fantasy that's never going to be that fantasy that isn't real so it's you saying i don't want to accept what is and i'm trying to accept what if those people who can't get over that that hop what do you tell them one of the biggest things that do you really want no no no no no it's a good it's a good conversation i think one of the biggest things i say to people is just like let's kind of break their space that they're in it's almost like that person needs a space change and they they need to get out of that zone and so for me i'm always encouraging people to start doing new things i think it's so powerful when you go and have a new experience when you try something new you join a new class you've never done it before because guess what it's about finding yourself again so you're now learning new things about yourself you're now falling in love with yourself it's about falling in love with you correct and i think that the biggest mistake we make in that time is everyone's telling you oh when's the rebound like are you going to date this guy when are you going to start dating again or this girl when are you going to be out there again and it's almost like well no maybe it's about i go inside this time and spend some time with myself and i think new experiences are a beautiful way of doing that because you only learn new things about yourself when you do new things with yourself right you never like we never do new things with ourselves you always you're always doing the same things with the same people but imagine you start doing new things on your own and now you have new memories and one of the things i've been talking about a lot with people is forming new memories if you don't make new memories the old ones will always hold you back and that's why we're stuck in the old because we're not making any new ones so the new the old ones just keep pulling you back so the best way to make new memories is a setup and experience do with a friend that you love and when you go out there it's this technique that's often used for grounding and therapy and everything but i use it for presents and that's how we were trained in it as monks when you go somewhere and you're like i want to take a mental picture of this how many times have you ever said that where you go so when you're like i want to yeah have this in my mind and i want to keep it forever and the iphone camera is not and the camera is not going to do it it's not going to keep it emotionally and i think we're so bad at creating emotional memories that are new so the best way to do it is called 54321 okay so when you're in a space and let's say i want to do it of this i look at five things that i could see so five things that i can see right now so i'm gonna say you okay obviously yeah important part of the memory you're important too yeah yeah i'm doing it with you yeah i'm gonna say the rug okay so i'm going for space okay now look at the ceiling so one two three four i'm gonna say the couch so there are five things that i can see the second thing is four things that you can touch okay so four things i can touch my silky dress my really dry skin you're good at descriptions silky dress dry skin this is good textured amazing three things that you can hear i can hear the light yes i can hear myself swallow and i can hear your voice perfect and then two things that you can smell i can smell my garlic breath and um i'm having a hard time smelling basically anything because i'm seven months pregnant you can hear how clogged i am yeah but maybe my perfume okay okay and then once it's all about me yeah no that's good and then one thing you can taste garlic great so so if you did that in an experience that you want to take forever all you have to do to to make a mental picture take a mental picture of everything you do five four three two one five things you can see four things you can touch three things you can hear two things you can smell and one thing you can taste i really like that yeah it's beautiful and this is what i mean by when you're going through a breakup the biggest mistake you make is the old memories hold you back because you don't know how to make new memories and so my advice to everyone is go and make new memories the first time i actually met raleigh was before i became a monk and i met her very briefly i thought she was beautiful and and and attractive but i didn't really think anything of it like i just i genuinely just was so focused on what i was doing at life at that time and i was so spiritually inclined and spiritually focused that i i literally didn't think anything of it yeah and my mom introduced me to you yes so i should tell that story yeah so actually i met rodney's mom even before i met her yeah and so i was training to become a monk and i met radi's mom and i was asked to show her how to do a particular service at the temple so i had to take her around etc now the incredible thing about this is that that is the only time you ever while i was there that i was ever asked to show another person how to do this service so the one day that i had to show someone how to do this particular service this voluntary service at the temple it was the one day that her mom turned up and at that time i didn't know she had a daughter i didn't know anything about this lady i was like oh she's around my mum's age yeah and and she was she was wonderful and and we got along but i was just showing her what to do and then literally didn't speak to her no and then my mom wanted me to get more involved in and i really wanted to get more involved in like the spiritual side of my life and so she met him and wanted me to um get introduced to the youth community there and so she passed on my number to you but you passed on to your sister yeah absolutely yes i passed it on to my sister i was like no i need to stay focused do my thing and my sister's very spiritually inclined too big shout out to amy and and then yeah and then you guys got connected and you became friends yeah and actually at that point my mom said to me oh you know i'm in this really nice um really nice guy at the temple and she was like to me after i met him i prayed and i was like i hope my daughter meets somebody like this i know he's going to be a monk but i hope she meets someone that's like this because he seems really nice little did he know what was going to happen and then um and then what happened he became a monk i heard you speak oh i heard him speak all the time because he used to do lots of youth programs or university talks and sessions on philosophy meditation yeah philosophy meditation and i was just like oh my gosh he's such an incredible speaker and the way that he um makes such incredible wisdom so relevant to us who were like young teenagers or yeah yeah not young teenagers i was a teenager i was a little teenager no you weren't no you were no way how old were they one thing you're going to realize i'm the one who remembers all the dates i'm like i'm the one who remembers it yeah i don't remember anything i barely remember things happened like two years ago um so no i wasn't a teenager i was out of university which feels like a long time ago so i was in my 20s and yeah i saw him speaking i just thought so incredible how he was able to articulate such yeah such deep wisdom in a way that was so relevant to people who were so young and and probably wouldn't have been so interested in reading a book about it um and so i was in awe of him and he also looked really cool he had like a bold head he didn't look like the type of person who was going to be speaking about these things he had like tattoos and a bold head but then he was in robes this is really really cool but weird at the same time he was so strange yeah and and then it was then when i left being a monk which is our story in itself we can talk about that another day when i when i left being a monk her and my sister were really really close yeah and me and my sister are really really close i trust my sister she's one of my best friends and i sat down with her one day and she said well you know what bradley likes someone and and i was just like oh who and i was thinking she was gonna say some other person's name and she's like she really likes you and i was like oh i i really like her like i'd love to get to know her better and we we'd interacted we'd had we'd got to know each other a bit better because we'd organize charity events together etc and so i'd seen her not in the role of being a girlfriend obviously or someone that i was dating i'd seen her interact with other people other other humans uh inside a project management organization organizing events so i'd seen her personality and like observed how she behaved around certain people how she had talked to people how she interacted with people and and based on all those things i thought she was a great person so when my sister told me that i was i was secretly quite happy as well and i always heard about him through his sister and his sister would talk about him with so much love and affection and he treats her like she's his baby no matter how old she gets she's literally like his baby and i used to see like conversations between them and he's like oh my gosh she's so sweet like he's so sweet even though he's yeah he's gone off being a monk but he was still really really caring and loving towards towards his sister and his family and then yeah i told her that i liked him before before he knew about it or before you'd probably even thought about it yeah yeah so then that was it really that's how we met we almost met before i became a monk then we had a conversation yeah never had conversations never spoke but but i just seen each other in our own elements yeah and then when i left left being a monk uh you know later that year we we started going out so that was around the towards the end of 2013. and then it just went really fast we both we both kind of as soon as we spoke about it we both knew that we wanted to be with each other and we were really certain about it and it could have gone really wrong but we were like we could have both been really crazy um but it ended up just working out we both really had kind of understood each other just by observing one another i guess and um there were a few surprises i'm sure but we yeah we got along straight away and we were both pretty much went from yeah i really like you too yeah i love you in like a day and then it was like yeah we want to get married in like a week um as in we didn't get married in a week but we wanted to we said we wanted to get married eventually in a week after that um and then we ended up spending a lot of time at each other's homes right um he was spending a lot of time at my house for ages i mean that's pretty much where i took him to have all of our dates because i loved being around my family and i was like best of both worlds i can be around the person that i want to spend the rest of my life with and the people that i've spent most of my life with and so yeah most of our dates would would involve my parents um and my sister and my brother-in-law of the time and so we got to know each other kind of in our own environments as well really fast which i think helped us fast forward a lot easier yeah absolutely and i remember that my sister gave me like an action plan she's like this is all you're going to get along on this is what you're going to struggle with and this is going to be your challenges and and i definitely owe it to her to bring us together yeah huge part of she was us being together my sister definitely and and she was like because she knows me so well and i feel she got to know you as well she was just like this is what you guys are going to agree on this is what you're not going to agree on this yeah it was just it was so nice to have that yeah because you could go into a relationship having more understanding of the other person can i just say one of the things she said that we wouldn't get along on is bollywood because i loved bollywood songs and films at the time but like a good bollywood song questionable question yeah questionable yeah i i decided to get over there yeah and you you barely yeah yeah yeah yeah you've got to go have a love for it yeah but yeah we spent a lot of time in each other's parents homes and with our families which was great because you had to be yourself i used to love what your mom used to tell you my mom was so funny so obviously like it was a person to her that was you know we were dating and so usually you would put in a lot of effort in the way that you dress and uh doing your hair when the person you're dating comes over but um yeah i would literally be in the same clothes that i was wearing like the whole day which was pretty much like pajama bottoms and and a really scruffy top and my mum would be like do you not want to maybe you know put a different top on or you don't want to change your trousers i was like no mom if he can't love me in what i'm wearing right now which is what he's probably going to see mean for the rest of his life then it's just not meant to be okay we have like he has to love me for and she would okay but you could try you know a little bit i was like no and it worked so yeah and she's so beautiful and cute like even when she's dressed on her bow chic i'm just like i love it you know and and it's quite nice actually like i genuinely believe this like i've i've rarely see her with makeup on yes and so it's it's fun when you when you fall in love with someone based on who they are and their personality and their energy and all of that beauty shines through so yeah i love you so that leads us nicely on to the next point that our friends wanted to discuss which is what's the key to starting off a relationship well like what's the key to starting it off well so one thing for me was was this that because we didn't see each other in dating environments yeah a lot i feel like dating environments put this pressure of being in an interview so i compared dates to interviews it's almost like you have to put your best foot forward you wear your best clothes you try and say all the best things and even if it's not the best actually it's us trying to be right and that's what we do in interviews when you're going to interview for a job it's like you want to be the right fit for that person yeah and that's what happens in a dating scenario like you're sitting opposite desk just like you're doing an interview and then someone's asking you a question and you're like okay well what do i have to say to make them like me or to say the right thing whereas we didn't really get to do that no and i'm not saying that that was a conscious choice but now when i look back at it and i reflect on it and introspect on it i'm like we didn't really get an opportunity to date in that sense and that means that i got exposed to the real her either by seeing her in a charity organization seeing her in a real life scenario how does she treat normal people and then how she is with her family and i'm like that's the best view you can get of someone and so when i look at that in terms of giving advice or tips or whatever my recommendation is be around people that you're thinking about being with in an environment where they're just being themselves because chances are if you like them the way they are when they are with other people then you're likely to love them when they're with you too and so often we only see people that we are considering being romantic with or dating etc we only see them in dates and dinners and movie nights and whatever it is right yeah i agree i feel like you see and also seeing people with the people that they're closest to because you can't really fake it with the people that you're closest to i mean if you can you could do it for a really short period of time and you also end up seeing them being probably at their worst and at their best because you can be the most loving to your family but you can also be the worst person towards your family because they're the ones that accept it and so yeah i feel like you get a good image of who the person is through through interacting with them that way absolutely good point thanks nicely said it's true yeah and and the other thing is i so when we first got together i'd left being a monk probably like seven months before so it'd been like a seven month gap and i didn't have a job oh yeah i had no job i had no money no i was getting rejected left right and center from every single place that i was applying to because i'd been a monk for three years and no one wanted to hire someone who had monk written on their resume like no one's like oh yeah i would love your transferable skills like you know like what do you know and so oh you can meditate for four hours great we need that in our organization so it was just there was no i had nothing really yeah and that's a great way to start dating someone because there's very i remember i used to save up so i used to like try and work part-time and i was doing everything i could you were tutoring i was tutoring so i would like i would be tutoring young people for their exams or university exams et cetera and i would be making like you know 15 pounds an hour or whatever it was and i remember i'd save up so i could take her out on a date at the end of the month and so that we could do something fun and and i loved the fact i loved that because i met her at a time when when i had nothing and she accepted me for it yeah i love her for that and also her parents were always really cool about it so sometimes that can be a big pressure from parents and expectations but her parents were really cool about it they never made me feel uncomfortable about it or anything and my parents obviously were very comfortable with me they were just like follow your heart do what's right for you very very encouraging and i'm not i don't come from a well of background at all or anything so it's not that i had a backup plan but my parents were still very very encouraging and supportive yeah i i i that was never uh in my mind to be honest i was i knew i wanted to be with you and so i was like to my mom even if we end up living in a really tiny house just by like near the temple that i used to go to and just i know that i want to spend my life with him so whatever ends up being and you were really really enthusiastic and you had so much purpose and even from the beginning like you were so driven to do whatever you wanted to do i didn't know what that was at the time um but you were so driven that i just knew whatever it was whatever we were meant to be was what was gonna happen and so and i knew you would never you're always like gonna be there to take care of me and i felt that from the beginning like i always felt supported you wanna hold hands yeah i'm not good at pda so i'm gonna not do that [Music] it was it was really nice and i feel like he had a lot of the qualities that i always felt i would always grow up saying i really want a husband that was like my dad like i love my dad and he was always someone that i felt very protected and supported by and so i just definitely now looking back at it i felt those qualities in him as i got to know him and so i thought yeah that was that was nice and my parents yeah my parents my parents and kerry that i always thought it would be you know you always think in indian families that's going to be an issue but they loved him from the start he's got really good i don't know what you guys have noticed but he's got a really good way of saying things and and winning people over by his words so it's real though i know that's why it's genuine and it's sweet so from those interactions i think my parents trusted him very easily as well um i really get along with your parents i know yeah and it was so great for me because amy was already like my sister and me and your mum got along straight away because we bonded over food and so yeah it was really easy for us both to join into each family but yeah another thing i think that's really important at a start of a relationship is self-awareness and setting expectations so i feel that having done the work as a monk and having been through that experience myself i'd gained so much self-awareness so i was really aware of what type of partner i needed in my life i was really aware of what i needed in my life to flourish to thrive and so when i met someone it was very easy for me it was very easy and simple for me to communicate my expectations to her and be like i i remember one of the things i said and this is not offensive at all it's genuinely how i felt at the time and i said that if you want a husband who goes to ikea on the weekends and and to the cinema like i'm not that guy and i didn't mean that as a bad thing if anyone is that what i meant that as is i want to be someone who lives a life of purpose and i want my life to be about service and i want my life to have an impact on people's lives and i need a partner that's going to understand that embrace that and roll with that as well and wants to live not a normal life because that wasn't going to work for me if i really wanted to have an impact if i really wanted to make a difference if i really wanted to serve and so that wasn't an ego thing it wasn't me thinking i'm better or above or special it was me saying this is a priority for me and i don't need it to be your priority but i need you to understand it to be mine and i think this is really important that we should feel that if we're genuinely committed to something when you make someone aware and same back from her side too like when she and she'll share hers but when she's made me aware of what her priorities are and what's important to her you start respecting what's important to the other person rather than expecting them to trade theirs right and that's usually what happens in relationships in the beginning is instead of showing respect for the other people's passion you expect them to change their passion for yours or compromise and be excited about your stuff and and i don't think that that's the right way i think it's us being clear about ourselves communicating that and then respecting what the other person communicates yeah i think we discussed that really early on actually yeah just to be clear he has come to ikea with me on the weekends but you know i understood the point of it and i remember at that time when he was really pushing for what he wanted to do um he was very very busy and so there were certain things i mean he spent a lot of time with me and my family but we had just agreed that look if there was extended things that i had to go to because with families there's always other things that you have to go to like family friends or relatives houses for every event possible and if that happened then i knew that i was okay with him not coming to them and i said that to him from the beginning if you need to go and do something which is i know for you more important not because for the purpose that you want to live then i totally understand that comes above you just coming to another party which people are not probably going to remember like it's it's okay um and i think that was really actually really important for us because you can always hear what other people say like family members or friends or whatever will always have a different opinion and so as long as you feel like you have um discussed it and you really understand that person's point of view then you don't feel kind of it doesn't rub off on you when people say things because you understand it deeply whereas if you don't then i think it's really easy to get swayed by other people's view of life or other people's way of relationships or whatever it is like you can get that can rub off on you very easily but if you really understand that person and why they're doing it i think that can make a big difference to you supporting them in why then why they're doing it thank you thank you so much for watching that video if you enjoyed it here's another one i think you'll love instead of criticizing the other person tell them what you want and tell them what you don't without implying that they're not doing it

Channel: Jay Shetty Podcast

Views: 267,645

Keywords: Jay Shetty, Jay Shetty Podcast, Jay Shetty Interview, On Purpose Podcast, Jay Shetty Inspiration, Jay Shetty Motivation, Jay Shetty Video, Self help, Self improvement, Self development, entrepreneur, success habits, purpose podcast, Jay Shetty relationships, jay shetty love, jay shetty relationships, matthew hussey interview, matthew hussey first date, matthew hussey rejection, matthew hussey dating, jay shetty dating

Id: GbBMJ0Bihbo

Length: 94min 18sec (5658 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022