Women Learn It Too Late! - Subtle Fears Keeping You From Being Remarkable & Confident -Trent Shelton

approximately one in Four Women settle in a relationship even though they know their needs wants and desires are not being met why on Earth are we settling for less than we deserve what's guiding your life a lot of times it's loneliness it's scarcity it's age it's pressure and those are the things guiding your life and when those things are guiding your life you tend to find what you don't deserve you tend to find what's first you tend to find what's available you tend to find what sure as I call your eyes pick out instead of your heart what your mind picks out instead of your heart and so settling I love to say this leads to suffering and if you look at any area of your life I can talk about mine people watching this every time you have settle in your life eventually if you don't change it it leads to suffering and that's why people get in relationships where it might be the honeymoon phase at first but when all those things were off you realize that man I settle for less man I ignore my worth and I didn't have patience to actually wait and trust that there was something that was really meant for my life and so I think it's the impatient part and the timeline part that comparison part that keeps a lot of people suffering when you look online you see happiness when you look online you see the highlights and nothing wrong with that like I say you shouldn't be posting your arguments online like post the good things there's nothing wrong with that but when you look out there you think that man I'm not enough or I don't have that or there's not a person for me you know I've had people inbox my wife and say oh I wish I had a husband like Trent and then now you start to have this this comparison game and now you start to say oh it has to look like him it has to be like this you have this list of things that you see that now you've created that's meant for your life that was really meant for somebody else's and so you see a lot of single people that and I'm going to say this it might be controversial a lot of times single people will say oh there's no person for me but yet there's a person for you it just didn't look like you wanted them to look and I get being attracted but maybe they didn't have the right job or maybe they didn't have the certain amount of followers online and you overlook that person based upon what your eyes want what this preference list wants and so I would ask the person watching this is like who's creating the list for you who's creating what you need in your life who's saying what's right for your heart is it social media is it the experts on social media is it truly what you need or is it what you want and you got to get clear on that because there's a big comparison game like if I look and see oh man like their relationship is great they're happy they're doing all the things together why are we doing this babe we should be doing XYZ and now it it puts unfair expectations on your relationship or even unfair expectations on what you want in a relationship so you got to be real with yourself oh my God there's so much there so you said also it's like well when you feel lonely right so how does that with the comparison thing then lead to us making bad decisions and and when I say bad I mean almost I think it's probably subjective but when you settle for something and you start to give up that light that is inside you you start to give up that thing that really makes you on fire that's why the settling thing really hits me hard and I think that so much of my audience really struggle with it so how does feeling alone and the comparison game combine itself into this almost like nuclear bomb inside of us sometimes it takes being perfectly lonely to realize what being perfectly love feels like in my life it was my alone moments which were very hard it was the moments of me setting boundaries the moments of me saying you know what I'm not going to pursue this I'm not going to allow my Temptations to make me pursue something where I figured out who I was and most individuals what I see is that they don't want to be alone they don't want to face themselves they don't want to deal with their loneliness and so now they would rather a little than nothing and I realized this and that's part the wrong thing than nothing so if you ask somebody and I would say majority of people because I know this is true if you say would you rather have a relationship that's okay than have no relationship at all they would say I would rather have a relationship that's okay I would rather have a little than nothing and that's backwards you got to get to a point where you say you know what I would rather have nothing if it's not going to be to the standard of what I want I would rather have nothing if it's not going to be to what I know that I deserve and respect and need in my life and it's it matches my worth but you see so many people getting relationships and say well at least I have a relationship at least I have a marriage at least I have somebody because we're so afraid to be alone even though we know that that person isn't right even though we know the relationship for better lack of words it sucks and we'll rather stay in that than go on this unknown Journey because a known pain in our brain is often more safer than a unknown PE piece we would rather stay in the known than actually go in a situation where it's unknown so even though this is bad even though it's toxic even though it's abuse even though I know this is not right for my life I'm so afraid to leave this because what if there's nothing better what if I leave this and it doesn't work out what if I leave this and this person becomes happy with somebody else and so now I stay in this place that I don't deserve and so I see that a lot people would rather choose a little then actually say I don't want anything unless it's the right thing God that's so strong and you say in your book work that um people almost go towards comfort and growth yeah they do outside your comfort zone is where the change takes place and I think a lot of people would rather stay in what's comfortable and what's comfortable is not going to allow you to grow what's comfortable is going to keep you in the same situation even even if it's conversations like in my marriage we have uncomfortable conversations the conversation that I don't want to have at all but we have these conversations because we know in order to take it to the next level in order for us to get understanding we got to have these uncomfortable situations that lead us to a better situation in our marriage and in our life and I think so many people are afraid of that confrontation they're afraid that what if I say what I really want to say what if I demand my worth what's going to happen what if this person leads me what if this person that I've known for so long you know a lot of times Lisa the history keeps people in the misery as I said and it's because I've known this person for so long I'm loyal to this even know it's the wrong thing we talk about loyalty so much and how beautiful it is and it is when it's used right but there's a lot of people in this world and I've been this person too so I rais my hand at some point in my life where we allow our loyalty to keep us in situations our common sense is telling us to get out of we allow our loyalty to keep us in the wrong things some of us are too loyal to the things that are not right for our life so you have to take your loyalty out of that and put your loyalty into yourself put your loyalty into your standards put your loyalty into your work worth put your loyalty in your values your principles and when you do that you'll realize like I don't need this I don't deserve this and you'll go on that journey of the unknown even if it's uncomfortable your history keeps the misery that's right that hit me so hard yeah okay so let's project then if that is true and you settle yes where does that end up leading a year down the line 5 years down the line 10 years is down the line to regret and regret is the greatest poison to the soul if you settle in life regret is coming for you at some point and especially in relationship you'll end up going from pretend soulmates to roommates and you're just existing at that point and it all started from you ignoring what your intuition with your soul as I like to say listen to your soul your soul is telling you that this ain't right your soul is telling you that you deserve better that you deserve more but your but your mind right the external things the comparison what are people going to say if I leave this if we start something different what what are people going to say if I if I have this divorce and I'm not advocating divorce but if I break up with this situation what are people going to say and so I'm going to stay in this and suffer and at some point you get to 40 50 60 10 years 5 years and you realize you wasted 5 years of your life on the wrong person not because you found out they were the wrong person but because you knew at the beginning they were the wrong person but they were just right for your loneliness they were right for your insecurities at the time and they were right for your Temptations and so you have to leave be willing to say I'm willing to go alone if it isn't right and if you can't have that mindset you're eventually going to run into regret and I think regret is the greatest poison to the soul God damn when I start to think about that projection because you can't get time back yeah you can't like it's it's so fearful and yet such an U eye openening statement that if you can't get it back how the hell do we make sure that in the now we actually live the life that we want and what we deserve and I really do think through if you settle because of the comparison thing because of the fear of being alone all these things it can eventually potentially I don't want to just generalize but it can potentially lead to being in a toxic relationship that you don't know how to leave because you're well this is better than nothing and yeah they might be they might call me names but it's better than soand so over there who doesn't look happy and so all of this comparison ends up I fear trapping a lot of us in toxic relationships that over time not only do you start to regret but it starts to erode your confidence it starts to erode who you are so how do we start to identify maybe the signs that this relationship is unhealthy that maybe they are using tactics and tools on you to keep you there and to keep you just settling for what you have facts over feelings write down a list of facts in your life because your emotional self your emotional self will keep you in situations that you don't deserve to be in no more so what are the facts right go back to the truth I always say facts over feelings because sometimes my feelings will keep me in situations that I don't deserve to be in no more so I go to my facts what are my facts say you know I have this quote that people kind of they look at me funny when I say this but I tell people like I'm not loyal to people I'm loyal to my principles because end of the day my good heart will keep me in situations that break my heart and so I have to go to my principles what do my principles say my principles say I deserve better my principles say this isn't right my common sense is telling me nah they're apologizing over and over but there's no change Behavior they're not serious about this situ situation so I always go back to my facts you can't depend on your feelings your feelings will keep you in a place that you no longer deserve to be at your feelings will keep you running back to something that honestly you should be running from and you live in this revolving door as I like to say leaving just to come back to the same reasons you left for because of your feelings and so I would write down a list of facts of what you want in your life what you deserve non-negotiables unapologetically and you just go by the actions and listen nobody's going to be consistently perfect but if it's always consistently imperfect it's always consistently terrible consistently tearing you down you have your answer because Lisa a lot of people ask does this person love me does this person care about me and I always tell people if you consistently answer asking that question you already got your answer because somebody who truly cares about you wants to put more answers in your life than questions I don't want people I care about and truly love to think do I love them or I care about them I want them to know and so if they're questioning it you probably got your answer wow and so do you so you've written down your principles absolutely can you tell me what your principles are yeah like I mean I have different ones but one of them is just personally for me it's always this is a uh not a relationship one but one for me is it's always whatever you come around get around make sure you make it better another one of my principles is never accept Less in your life and listen I sometimes fell at that principle I'm a human being but that's a principle another principle is make sure you're giving what you wish to receive because that's another conversation that a lot of us we want to receive certain things but we're not giving certain things so you set the tone for your life another principle is know your worth demand your worth as I say in the book and I live by these things and the times that I don't live by Lisa I always put myself in a bad position the times when I listen to my feelings instead of my facts I always put myself in a bad position so I have to go to the thing that's that doesn't rely on my emotional state it relies on and I created this for my best place and I know if I stick to these things it's going to lead me to a place where I'm happy where I'm Healed where I'm excited about life okay so how do you have the confidence to do that then because I'm thinking through someone at home listening oh my God I really want to do that I love that idea that sounds amazing I've got principles to go by but sometimes your belief system is actually getting in the way of you even writing that principle down cuz you're like I can't do that I can't tell so and so no I can't turn around to my spouse and say you know X Y and Z and their belief system holds them back from writing that principle in the first place yeah you got to update your belief system and that's hard but you got to go back and ask yourself questions why am I believing like this and a lot of times it stem from trauma from childhood you probably seen it growing up you're probably seen as a woman that you know you're not supposed to say anything or maybe your mother you know was a certain way to towards your father your father was a certain way towards your mother and so you have to like literally obliviate your belief systems and start fresh from a foundation of what does my best life look like I ask people this question what does happiness look like most people don't know they don't know what their best life looks like so if you don't know what your best life looks like you're going to settle for a life that somebody else gives you and the crazy thing about it is they're creating your best life and so you often think oh this is my best self what they give me and so you have to be clear on your standards you have to be clear on your beliefs and you just start small start with one step what do I want to feel what do I want to experience how do I want to live do I want to be happy right do I want to be free you have to write these things down the hard part is it's sticking to it but one of the things that I tell myself that helps me and this might be extreme is I always tell myself Trent you don't want to die unhappy and the truth of the matter is if you stay in your situation that's exactly what's going to happen happen it's not going to change people don't change unless they want to change you can hope for their change you can pray for their change you can try to influence their change but somebody's not going to change until they want to change there's no Perfection you can provide that's going to make somebody change and once I realized that I said oh okay this is a me thing like I have to fix this my perfection isn't enough my doing everything and changing everything isn't enough and I see so many women they do that they change the way they look they change the way they talk they change way they dress for somebody just to get to that point where that still isn't enough they're always going to find something wrong with you yeah go then and I think that that's one part that a lot of the audience do struggle with is that if someone gives you the lip service right of like no no no no I'm going to do this and I'm going to change and I didn't mean to and I'm so sorry and apologies apologies apologies you do hold on to the hope that that person's going to change and hope is can be a beautiful thing but I think it can also be um like the the like the the weight around your ankle if you and then you're thrown into the ocean and it just pulls you down deeper and deeper and deeper you will never be enough for a person who is not enough for you and I say that because I want you to find confidence in that if somebody always deems you as not enough you know that person isn't right for you like there will always be something wrong about you to a person that's not right for you and so when you realize that don't take it as a bad thing and I know it's easier said than done but it's like okay this person must not be for even though I love this person so much I can't be who they need me to be and you got to let go of that how do you then to start to maybe get out of the Trap that maybe you find yourself in because there's you did this video and you said um that sometimes people will secure your insecurities and I was like oh my God oh God it's so how do you identify who and how they're doing it and then how do you get out of someone who may have in who may have secured your insecurity especially when you're dating early on this is just my perspective you got to be really careful about opening up everything about you because I've been I'm a guy you know what I mean like when I was 20 and 18 I didn't do this purposely I can honestly say that but when a when a woman would say all the things that they're ex did wrong and I'm like okay I'm going to make sure I don't do those things CU if I don't do those things then that person is going to think oh this person is the person for me and so you have to realize when you're sharing all your insecurities a person that not even wants to use you but a person that's even trying to use you they're going to make sure they don't do that so if it's like hey my ex never called me if I'm the new person I'm G to call every single time because what's that's doing is telling the woman or man in the situation that oh this person's right for me if it's you know every time my ex came into the room they were always on their phone and so when you're first getting in a relationship what you're going to do if you want to use this person you're going to make sure you put your phone away because automatically that person thinks oh this person is right for me so people who want to use you and manipulate you and listen some people want to help you by the way there's great people that just want to help you I want to be clear about that this is not like for everybody but there are certain people that will literally do all the right things to make you think they're the right person so they can take advantage of you so be very careful and be very cautious about telling all your business so quick okay so what do you think is the difference then about somebody who's sweet and kind and loving as you that if you heard something like if your wife told you in the dating face if she told you she was insecure about something because you're a kind and sweet man you'd be like oh okay cool I got to make sure that I don't do it because she's really sweet and I like her and then there's the flip side of the manipulator that's like ahuh I get it that's the thing I'm going to use so how do you almost like separate the two I think it's the consistent actions you know I know feelings can lie to you too but you can feel energy you know energy doesn't lie words lie you know numbers sometimes lie men w women lie but energy often doesn't lie and so if somebody's consistently doing the right thing consistently um you know really trying to change and help you and not doing these things so they want they don't want to add to your insecurities like you know what's real but if you look at a person's actions that yeah they're feeling your insecurities they're securing your insecurities but everything else they still doing terrible they're still behind the scenes doing things are still trying to tear you down with their words and their language and often times if you want to see somebody's heart when you first get into a relationship look at how they treat other people instead of you because they're going to treat you right because they want something from your life but watch how they treat other people a good person isn't selective of treating people good that's just who they are and so often times I will look at that and say okay I know you're going to treat me right because you want something but how do you treat other people how do you treat the person that can do nothing nothing for you how can you treat the person that that can't pay you back how do you treat kids how do you treat all these people and consistency and congruency of that will never lie to you especially if they think you're not looking exactly a th% that's even stronger you also say that they were try and infiltrate your circle yeah so when somebody's trying to secure your insecurities they want to get the people around you on their side right they want to get your friends your family they want to do all the things your mama your daddy right they want everybody to like them so it ever comes to a time of you having to choose yourself or them or a rocky time your family and friends this happens all the time your family and friends would be like oh don't leave this guy don't leave this woman like don't leave them they're too they're they're perfect because he has given them a lot of benefits it's hard to cut connections when a person is so connected to so many things around you it's hard it's kind of like in business right like if you in a business with a spouse or a friend it's harder to break that connection when there's so many things that's tied to that right you tend to give it more chances you tend to say you know what uh let's see if we can make this work because the outcome of this is going to be a lot of conversations a lot of stress and so when somebody's connected to so many things around you it's hard to disconnect from that person and woman starts to feed in even more of your insecurity because you're like well everyone else loves him exactly like maybe it's just me and then that's like the worst right when you start to Gaslight yourself and you start to think like oh it must be me everybody else loves them absolutely um so part of what we're talking about and getting trapped and stuff is that you you write in your book is you go very heav about people pleasing mhm and 30% of women know their marriage isn't going to work before they even get married H 30% 30% now when I think about why why would you if you know that that relationship isn't going to last why would you still do it and I have someone very close to me and I ask them why and what do you think the answer was we grew up but a Ser options didn't until now magic spoon reinvented and upgraded seal so it's got the same great 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family that you're going to have and the people pleasing is so can be so detrimental to us our self-esteem and who we are so talk to me about people pleasing and actually have a quote of yours you're easily manipulated by perceptions that that we are letting someone down yeah being a slave to perceptions is one of the things that controls so many human beings trying to please perception and I always break it down like this like there's three types of lenses that I talk about in the book but one of them is the people pleas pleasing lenses and what that is it's how you see the world you see the world you know picture you have glasses on I always say there's prescription given to you there's a power prescription that that you're supposed to live like that but then there's this prescription the people the people pleasing prescription and you put these glasses on you see the world as if oh I have to be that in order to be liked oh I have to be like this in order to be loved oh they only love me when I do certain things and you live life like that pleasing people and I've been guilty of that in my life I've been guilty of that with people with my business um even me in my space now and I realized that every time that I was saying yes to other people and pleasing perception and being a slave to that I was losing myself and what's the point of pleasing everybody else if you're losing yourself so I would tell the person watching this right now you have to let go of that by setting some boundaries you're going to let people down and most people who are as I call Professional people Pleasers triple PE triple PE I love that they are so worried about letting people down that's their biggest fear I don't want to let them down like you just said I don't want to let my family and friends that paid this money for the wedding I don't want to let them down but what if you took those took that down a notch I get that with a good heart I understand what if you raised letting yourself down as the biggest fear and that's where it changed for me when I say yes I'm afraid to let you down but I'm more afraid of letting myself down because every time I let myself down I get to a point in my life where I don't even know who I am anymore I'm stressed and stress is a silent serial killer that will murder your peace I'm stressed I'm hurt I'm smiling for the camera but dying behind the scenes because I'm pleasing everybody I'm making everybody else happy so if saying yes to them is saying no to yourself is that really the life that you want to live if saying no to them changes the relationship is that truly a relationship and I realized this like no is a full sense there's no Karma there's no you know whatever type of punctuation it is use the exclamation mark it's no and I've gotten to a point in my life like that where everybody doesn't get it everybody doesn't receive it but I'm okay with it because losing myself is no longer an option and so who's guiding your life I would ask you watching this who's guiding your life are you doing things for yourself are you doing things to please everybody else the first step to being unhappy is trying to please the world it is Mission Impossible and so we're relationship ship I know that could be hard because like I have a husband or I have a spouse or I'm trying to please them this is what I would say at least this is true for me if you giving me a no and I love you and care about you if you giving me a no means that it's giving yourself a Yes means that you're giving yourself more peace I'm going to Champion that every single time if saying no to me helps you live a better life I love you so I'm going to Champion that every single time even though it might hurt but I want to see the best you so a person that wants the best for you wants to see the best you so you shouldn't be afraid to give a no to a person that cares about you they might not understand it at first it might make them a little but they'll get it because they know that if you said no you must have really needed that yes to yourself how do you though start to make that change if you've always been the yes person I'm a future thinker so this works for me all the time and I just ask myself if I keep going on this path if I keep going down the yellow brick road where is this going to lead me to and so the first form of practice is that you just got to start saying a no I don't care what it is I don't care if it's to your kids I don't care if it's to and I know that's a taboo one but I'mma be real with you like why is that t because I just think people feel mothers especially feel like when they're saying no to their kids that they're letting them kid letting the kids down and I see a big struggle with mothers around that because Mom is always the greatest title that they were but I tell mothers all the time you're more than a mother that's just a title you're more than a wife and the more you stay in those titles and you don't do anything else you build resentment for your spouse you build resentment to your kids so say no to your kids and I've had to do that as a man to my kids it's not that I'm telling them no because I want to but Daddy needs to take care of himself Daddy needs to be who he needs to be so he can provide for you guys and make sure I'm in the right space and so I think a lot of times it's the fear that we're letting somebody down again and I love that you're teaching your kids to be able to say no because if you're leading by example um people will see that and a lot of I'm going to speak for myself because there a lot of women but I think we all face this you do go to explain you do go no but the reason is because I'm really tired and I did this and this is what happened 3 weeks ago and blah and it's all out of the insecurity because you want them to feel okay with your no yeah and so I know that you're saying just say no with an exclamation but how do you actually start to do that when you're your your your the to your core is the person that doesn't want to let someone down and your identity actually is not letting people down yeah I would ask where does it come from you know you have to anything that is a habit to break or something to break it's coming from a foundational place in your life and where does that come from was it as a kid you saying know and you got some negative feedback from that and so you have to go back to those moments and give yourself Grace give yourself forgiveness and say hey I was saying no because I needed it and I and I know that in my life because that's happened to me where things as a child in my parents are great by the way but things as a child still stuck me as an adult so I was afraid to say yes I was afraid to choose myself at times because I felt I would lose people if I didn't so I would first ask like where is it coming from and then again you have to change your perspective towards it right a no isn't a no it's really a yes to yourself so change your perspective a power perspective says I am doing this because I know I have to be the best me for those that need me to be so create a more empowering meaning because I can guarantee even when it comes to setting boundaries most people don't set boundaries because of two reasons worry and guilt they worry about what people are going to say or they feel guilty that they're leaving people behind MH they don't set boundaries because they think boundaries are some huge wall boundaries are not a wall unless somebody disrespects your boundaries and makes it a wall boundaries literally are a bridge that leads you to what you need and so by that by that change in perspective now boundaries are this beautiful thing so relationships marriages you need boundaries it's not a bad thing friendships you need boundaries so when it comes to you recovering as a recovering people pleaser and healing yourself I think it's about changing your perspective in the meaning you give things to be able to say this is for me for a bigger reason and I'm not letting them down by allowing them to continue to be enabled too I know of my wife and a lot of people that they struggle with choosing themselves in certain situations because they feel as if the need of them is no longer needed so you feel as if if I say say no that I'm not needed no more and a lot of people's value is tied to being needed so we allow people to use us mistreat us even as moms taking care of daughters or or whatever it may be and you won't say no because if I say no they don't need me no more so a lot of that is tied to Ego also so being able to let go of that and saying you know what AM my helping them are enabling them and I just feel like if you don't say no you are enabling them you are literally being their cealing in their life and so I'm just speaking kind of to mothers with kids like you're the cealing to your kid I had to do that with Tristan I talk about in the book like we had the thing called daddy shop and every every day and it was so hard because that's like my greatest like I don't ever want to tell him no well now it's easier as a teenager but growing up I never wanted to tell him no and he was around 10 nine or 10 years old and I was like man he's taking so much of my morning and he should be combing his hair he should be doing all these things he should be making his own breakfast he should figure it out did I want to make him do that no I loved it I found so much value in that I love being needed I love being dad I love these things but I realized that it was taking a lot from my day and I needed to allow him to be able to spread his wings figure it out fail mess up and so I said hey Trish today's the day bro where you figure it out pick your clothes out do your own hair cook your own pancakes and it was terrible the first few days I mean his clothes was like bro I was like man change this okay almost burned down the house cooking pancakes but now you know he's as I say like the pancake Maestro his pancakes are great he gets himself ready for school he does all the things because I stopped being his ceilling and that's just one example but a lot of times we're people's sillings because we're afraid to tell them no wow that's so strong when you said enabling I didn't quite understand it but you totally explains it and that's actually quite a strong thing to keep in mind if it's someone that you really care about how do you flip almost like no no they need me versus like I'm oh I'm enabling them to not get better to not progress that's actually really strong because if you actually want what's best for them that hopefully will actually be more powerful than you wanting to people please absolutely um and then you actually said as well like boundaries there you know you call them in your book they're more like draw Bridges and not walls and I heard you say that we actually protect our house more than we actually protect our heart mhm we do and our phone I mean we protect our phone more than we protect our soul I mean you look at somebody's phone they got passwords you know two Factor authentication right passwords is all over the place like our house we got cameras everywhere you know what I mean and we do these things because we want to protect our house we want to protect our things car alarms we have all the things we got apps on our phone right now I can look at my house and see who's at the door but yet when it comes to your heart when it comes to your soul we don't have those things we let people into our heart easier than we do as they enter our house strangers we wouldn't let a strangers come in our house I talked about this in my first book with my mother my mother was a perfect example of that like if you were in our house you were trusted so my mother would talk to you through the door if she didn't know you she might crack the door if you upstairs in her house you are all the way in but there were levels to gain entry to our house but when it comes to our heart we don't have that all they got to do is say the right thing all they got to do is look the right way all they got to do is have the right thing surrounding their life oh this is for me and we don't make people earn that title and a lot of people and I've been guilty of this too we will give people titles so quickly that they don't deserve that they haven't earned title of a boyfriend friend that they haven't earned title of a husband that they haven't earned title of a wife or girlfriend that they have title of a friend that they haven't earned but we're so quick to give that away and I think a lot of that stems from our insecurities stems from the comparison stems from man if this person is knocking at my heart if I don't answer then who knows when the next person is going to come so I'm GNA let this person in even though they haven't deserved and earned the trust for my life so what would the surveillance come of the heart if you will what would that look like yeah I think I mean I think it's different for everybody but one is consistency like consistency so if somebody's coming to my house and I'm G to let them in my house they got to have some consistency because consistency equals trust consistency makes you a go-to person and so that's number one if somebody's going to enter your heart it needs to be consistent I would say number two if somebody wants to enter your heart and come into your life there needs to be some type of commitment a commitment that doesn't work off of convenience a commitment when it gets hard they don't run away they don't leave a commitment when it gets tough your private conversations don't become public information those type of commitments that commitment that says you know what I'm really here for you I'm not going to let a person in my house that I feel like doesn't have that commitment that hasn't shown me over and over because if they haven't shown me I'm not going to trust it and so commitment and consistency equals trust and you can have your list of other things too whatever it is for you maybe it's how tall they are whatever it may be like but you can have your list but commitment and consistency to me are the two things that actual that actually inspire and influence trust in somebody's life I love the idea of the levels as well that really hit me when you said it because you're like oh yeah you may actually just let a stranger or like you ask them like hey you know who are you before you let them in your house but imagine you let them in your house and they walk upstairs and walk into your bedroom you'll be like what the hell yeah exactly but with the heart you almost wouldn't like if it was like two dates later and they're like hey let's you know there's that I'm not not necessarily talking about sex but um that intimacy that you're willing to let somebody more in I think quicker with the heart and intimacy than you would into your house and a specific private room in your house yeah no you wouldn't you wouldn't do that in your house right you would flip out and so time Reveals All and when you when you put people on a on a time limit and I'm going just put it like that when you make people really work for it maybe the word work isn't the right word but when you make people really earn it like you will see what's real because often times a lot of people when they get what they want you going to see how much they really care about you and if somebody who really really cares about you really wants to be in your life they're willing to wait they're willing to take those baby steps they're just as afraid as you to rush some things because maybe they've been through some things in their past and so you got to be patient in the process and you got to make sure that your Temptation your loneliness your horniness I'm going be real like doesn't control you to put you in a situation that you know uh isn't right for you that creates a soul tie that's hard to break Soul tie yeah that's strong um I think you also said actually speaking of being patient of how when someone isn't patient and they're trying to rush you into a decision they're trying to rush to make things that's actually a sign of like a th% that's a red flag I mean that's a red flag that's that's waving into your face like when somebody put you on a timeline like that it's like make this decision Rush this Rush this like never be rushed always have patience like even in my life um from business like I'm Guided by peace so often times I'm at a different pace of other people people call me a turtle at times like man you are taking long to make a decision it's not because I'm indecisive it's because I have a process and I I think with dating and relationships you should have a process you should trust your process your process is a process for a reason so don't let anybody rush it if somebody says you know oh well if you don't hurry up then you know I'm not going to be with you then cool let them walk out the door it wasn't meant for your life and so you got to have that confidence with within yourself and as you said belief in yourself to be able to make those decisions how do you then build that process cuz you said build the process that you don't have to rush into a decision if someone's actually forcing you to rush you just back to your process is like no no no I'm not done but what if your process is actually really short unhealthy process yeah you got to me you got to change it you know you got to change you got to look back and see this process doesn't work just like anything else if you know working for you yeah if you know this process for the last five relationships has laid you in the same place and I will say this and I might catch some heat for saying this but a lot of times like people will say there's no good men there's no good women and I always tell people no there are great people out there it's just the ones you choose to date and I'm just keeping it real like you got to realize what about my process is attracting me to this what about my process is keeping me attracted to the same type of person that's giving me the same type of result that's giving me the same type of heartbreak I got to change it up because something is not working and so I think it's different for everybody but you got to look at that and say okay whatever this process was we are done with it delete we are not doing this anymore and we're going to create something new and I think over time you find different things you try it works it doesn't work and then you get to a point where you have this master process that you know has worked for you or at least you think can work for you and that can kind of then be your almost like your your bumpers so that if someone comes in and tries to like push you over you actually have these bumpers so hang on a minute this is my Guiding Light if you will absolutely it's your facts it's your system of your facts that you can always go to to be able to trust that yeah so you got an amazing chapter in your book about boundaries so I'd love to now that we've kind of like really established that framework and like the foundation now if someone's listening and they're like okay I definitely hear you I really want to get a you know um I want to get have healthy relationships I want to be be able to be confident how do I start to set those boundaries and you got an incredible quote Oh my God hits me like a ton of bricks I would rather live cold-hearted than brokenhearted yeah I would rather live coldhearted than brokenhearted yeah I would rather people view me as that and that happens a lot when you stop deciding to take manipulation because it's G gaslighting 101 people will try to flip the script on you they will try to make you look like the bad person to the world and everybody else they would try to assassinate your character they would try to drag your name through the mud so theirs can be clean and if me choosing me and what's best for me and me Choosing My worth and demanding my worth and you were trying to make me feel worthless and made me settle for less if that is coldhearted sign me up I got a ice box and I'm willing to I'm willing to have that reputation because I am not going to live brokenhearted no more I'm not going to live brokenhearted for anybody that's a non-negotiable and I think that's a big thing Lisa like a lot of people say they have non-negotiables but they really don't they have semi non-negotiables it's NE non-negotiable under certain circumstances non-negotiable means I don't care what the circumstances are I don't care how I feel I don't care how it looks I don't care what comes my way this is the standard I'm living by regardless and so when it comes to boundaries the boundaries are set to protect my life to protect my energy to protect my soul it's set there for a reason I built this fence I built this I don't want to call it a wall because it's not necessary wall unless somebody builds it and I want to say that it becomes a wall when somebody keeps disrespecting you then it's a wall to keep keep that thing out then it's delete the name in the phone or change the name to what they gave you pain or whatever you want to call them then it becomes a wall but the boundary is set for a reason to protect me to keep me in my best state to keep me my best energy and so I'm going to trust those boundaries but also it is a bridge and so what I would do because it's unfair to set boundaries and I know I said say no with an exclamation and that's in certain situations when you have a deep relationship like a marriage or a relationship that's that maybe you know fiance or you've been in in a relationship for three or four years whatever it's important to make sure you communicate communication is aution into your relationship without it it will die and a lot of times we have Silent Communication what that is is we're expecting somebody to know what you haven't said we're expecting somebody to do what you haven't expressed that you need to be done and so when it comes to boundaries I've seen this I've been guilty of this myself where I've set boundaries with people without telling them and I get mad and resent them for disrespecting the boundaries that they had no idea was there in the first place so unclear communication leads to unfair expectation you can't expect somebody to be someone you need them to be when you haven't expressed that so have that conversation as I call it send the invitation out just like you would have a party I would send the invitation out to the party and say hey you're welcome to come this is the party you can show up you cannot show up but I sent the invitation and it's the same thing with my life if I'm going to change am I going to grow if I'm GNA shift who I am and stop you know whatever it may be I sent the invitation out and you know what everybody didn't show up but you can't be mad at me because I told you where I was going I told you what I was doing and so that's a big part of the boundaries is send the invitation out have the conversation and then from there you're clear you know that it's no unclear clear things they know exactly how you feel they know exactly what you expect and they have a choice they can respect it or not but then it's more clear to you on where they stand yeah you say in your book peace is a choice absolutely it is peace is a choice accepting less is a choice demanding your worth is a choice everything is a choice so Choose Wisely this whole book is literally about a constant battle the external versus the internal I believe and I could be wrong but this is my belief my idea that you're in control of two things what you give nobody can stop you from giving anything you can say whatever you want give whatever you want you're in control of that and for this conversation what you accept nobody can make you accept anything without your permission so I I'm G to say this and I know it might hurt a little bit it might not be your fault but it is your responsibility it might not be your fault what happened to you it's probably not your fault what happened to you but what you do with that information and what you do from there on out it's your responsibility and sometimes I know somebody out there probably needs to hear this sometimes another chance don't need to exist and I believe in chances I'm guilty of it I'll give Chances with plural ess's but the more chances you give someone the less respect they start to have for you and it's true and so you have to be able to be clear when you setting your boundaries and and having these conversations to say you know exactly where I'm at with things and I'm going to tell you right now that another time will not exist if it's going to be like last time and you got to stand on that that has to be a non-negotiable we negotiate on our worth way too much and these external things are controlling us and and I know you know Lisa what YouTube channel and uh all the people you coach and Mentor I bet you I'll be safe and say 99% it's the outside things that are controlling who they are and how they feel they've accepted something that they didn't have to accept right if I was to give you a cup of poison and I said drink this would you drink it no I throw it at you right exactly right you be like you're crazy what but what's crazy is that and I know this seems so common sense what's crazy is that so many of us will accept emotional poisons every single day and we will drink those emotional poisons like security and insecurities the lies the manipulation the apologies without change behavior and we keep drinking this emotional poison until it kills us internally we stay in a situation that we know we shouldn't be in this is so profound so Prof profound how do you then start to well so actually let me start with you actually said your non-negotiables become negotiable depending on the circumstance yeah and the more chances you give someone the more they disrespect though they less respect they have for yeah the less respect you have so putting those two together that how do you then make sure that your non-negotiables stay non-negotiables so that you don't end up you know kind of oh okay we're just this time we're just this time because now you're I I think you also have another qu was like you teach people how to treat you treat you by what you accept you teach people how to treat you by what you accept you teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself and so I'm not saying I have myself all togethere but I rarely get disrespect because I respect myself and I'm not going to say people are intimidated to disrespect me but they know what I'm not going to accept I set the tone for my life how I carry myself How I Live what I don't put up with and it's the same like if I see a person that looks like you know that they're that you know what I mean that they're hurt yeah sure then it's like oh they're prey oh I can take advantage of that oh they don't they don't respect thems they disrespect themselves how they car themselves what they do what they say to themselves how they live oh snaps I can take advantage of that and that's why it's important when I say what you give yourself shows other people how to respect you shows people how to treat you so when it comes to your non-negotiables as you were saying like when it comes to chances I don't know if this was the question but like when it comes to understanding to give another chance or not I always look at progression like I will never quit on progression ever if I see somebody that's trying to do better that's literally putting the effort to change then I know my my non-negotiables maybe can can can slot a little bit because I know that person's putting in the work if I see a person where there's no progression cuz the problem is I would like to say a lot of people they fall in love with potential and potential a liot to you potential is something that's hardly ever met you fall in love with the potential of what this could be you fall in love with who they could be you see the best in them little bit and you fall in love with that and you become blind to the reality of who they are so this might be a little bit tough but stop fall in love with the potential and look at the truth of that person what they giving you whether they consistent doing to your actions because that's who they really are so based on how they respond your neg your non-negotiable can change over time so you're not saying you have to do it in stone and build the wall and never knock it down but it all depends on how the other person shows up and makes the effort to change yep and it has to do nothing with me right kind talked about earlier like I want to see your change so it could be somebody that's an alcoholic right and maybe they treat other people different right of course you can give me the flowers you can change for me you can do all the things maybe you were abusive uh in in language you can change the way you talk to me that's great because you want me back it's called push and pull right it's like I'm going to pull you back by saying all the right things once I get you back I'm gonna go back to the same things and push you away so I want to see your change that has nothing to do with me so if you're an alcoholic I want to see your change with alcohol I want to see your change in how you treat people if you're a person that has a poor relationship with your kids I want to see that relationship be built with your kids because that's true change I don't think change it can be dimensional but I think change is a holistic process so I want to see that you're change holistically not just the words and the things that you give me because that's another tactic of just getting me back so how do you start to go back to the non-negotiables then how do you start to to set those non-negotiables um you are an extremely strong emotionally strong it seems yeah emotionally strong when it comes to this sort of thing yeah you're very clear on your worth and where you stand what you'll accept and what you won't accept that's so powerful and enticing and I think everybody really at some point would would love to be able to have those skills so as we're talking about this so with B boundaries how have you been able to because I don't think cuz you've even said and you talk about in your book it's not like you've always been like this it's been your own growth in your Evolution so if someone's never set a boundary before right now and they're like okay I understand why I just don't know how to even get started because I know that I'm going to get pushed because I know that people are going to comment oh my God you've changed oh you know my identity now is getting lost how do you even get started on that you said invite them but what does that actually look like like take me through a real case scenario of like if you imagine you never had a boundary with your wife and now you actually had have to set one yeah so I would have a conversation with her I would sit her down and I would tell her clearly like not being around a bush this is what I need in order for me to become the best me this is what I need in order for me to become the man that you need me to be I need this and you might not agree with it you might not understand it but I'm letting you know that this is going to help me become better for everything around me and so I would go even internally like I'll have that conversation but then I'll first ask myself and I'll and this is what you can do right now with Sting the boundary what do you need in your life start there what do you need in your life or if it's a relationship what do you need in your relationship your marriage whatever it may be what do you need that's the first thing because you can't set a boundary if you don't know what you need the second thing I would ask is by setting this by setting this boundary what is it going to immediately give your life so if I set a boundary you know I need peace in my life right and I set this boundary of maybe it's um you know I got a boundary that I'll share on here like before 12:00 p.m. I am very hard to reach it doesn't mean like if my kids come I'm like hey I'm busy no it's not that but they understand my wife understands like that morning time is my time and I show up better so they experience the boundary that's the thing too like when they come into the experience of it and they see my wife has boundaries and at first I'm like man I don't want you to set that boundary but now I realize how it's helped her and I experiened that so I understand it so I would say bring them into the experience too just say hey give me a week give me two weeks a month and just let me do this and if it's something that doesn't change anything you don't see anything different we can have that conversation but just give me this trial with this and let me try this and so I would think about what do you need in your life I would think about you know um what is it going to how's it going to make you feel because you got to have something to keep you committed to that boundary and how it makes me feel is what keeps me committed to it every single day and then the third part and this is I think most important is what is it costing you not to set the boundary the opportunity costs what is it costing you not to set the boundary when you understand opportunity costs it changes everything if I don't set this boundary in my marriage it's going to cost me my damn marriage if I don't accept this boundary in this Rel it's going to cost me this Rel if I don't accept this boundary in my life it's going to cost me these things get clear on what it's costing you because when we understand opportunity it creates healthy fear a healthy fear is man if I don't do this this is what's going to happen in my life so start there like what does it cost you not to set the boundary and if it's not with if you're in a toxic situation by not setting this boundary it's costing your life and I'll tell you that like I know that might seem extreme but we going to be extreme it's costing your life it's creating a slow death emotionally inside of your life and I've seen it over and over and over where that slow death leads to mental health issues that leads to suicide and I know that seems very very extreme but it's a life or death situation with these boundaries and when you think about it like that it changes everything some truth right there I love it when you give it hard as well because like I just want the truth and in putting it in that perspective and you said that multiple times in this interview of like the lens that you look through and then how you perceive things I think that in flipping the boundaries because so many people especially my audience like we just want to we want people to like us right we want to be people Pleasers we we don't want to ruffle any feathers but because of that it's led us to being in relationships that don't serve us wrecking our confidence because we've been around people that just try to bring us down instead of lifting us up and so when I think about how you get over that how do you get over the internal struggle that you're facing in order to impact your external and create a difference and that hard truth of this could actually cost you your life and it hit me when you even said like if I don't set a boundary in my marriage it cost me my marriage absolutely it will and I think you get clear on that that's the healthy fear that you have to create in your life in every area of your life you're going to be consistent to the things that you understand what is costing you you think about consistency in everything in your life you're consistent because you understand what it's costing you you're consistent at do this this beautiful amazing interview in your podcast because you know if you don't do it what it's C we talked offline there's people getting help from this there's people's lives being changed but so you're going to show up because you understand what it's costing and if you look at your life in every area especially your relationships or the relationship you're trying to get out of when you get clear on that you'll be consistent so what does this look like for a person that's in a toxic situation I'm going to get clear on man if I don't set this boundary if I don't get out of this right I'm going to take it to the extreme it's going to cost me my life and that's going to be the fuel the engine that I stay locked on to the fact that I stay locked on to that's going to keep me progressing towards what I need into my healing that's going to keep me moving on and it's going to give me something to move on too you obviously know that I've been struggling with a lot of health issues for many years now and it got to the point where I was so sick with so many gut issues and immune issues that it actually almost became life or death for me where I was like I have to start setting boundaries in my life because I was showing up for everybody else except for myself and it was when we were building Quest and Quest was growing so quickly and I didn't want to disappoint my husband I didn't want to disappoint our business partners and so I was showing up for everybody else and then my health just went to you know down the toilet and that forced me almost to then set the boundaries and I found it very difficult initially setting the boundaries because I was a person that didn't have any boundaries and so when I first started setting them with my family especially CU it was okay on weekends I'm not going to answer my phone like my phone is going to be off and I decided that on my own I decided this is what I need because it's life like I actually need self-care in order to get my my energy back so I can actually eat so I can put on weight again so I can actually live like it was extreme and so hearing what you're saying that boundary piece in the life can actually end up being life or death sometimes for some people especially when it comes to self-care and things like that and I got a lot of push back initially cuz everybody's like you can't switch off your phone what if we need to reach you and so I then went into exactly what you did where you explained this is why I need to do it I need to get healthy I need to have the peace I need to protect my space and the people that respected it my family were like okay I hear you and it's going to take us time to adjust and then there was an adjustment period but once you're able to do that with somebody that boundary feels like a beautiful dance the bridge instead of yeah the bridge instead of like this like clashing together um and so yeah the life and death piece was really strong for me and then also when you talk about boundaries I've heard you say like you show up for people when they have problems until the problem becomes your problem yeah I'm laughing I just talked about that yesterday yes yes and it's and it's so true um cuz I have a a very very kind heart like I really do and I really care for people um but yes like I will help you with any problem as best as I can there's two things number one you got to at least try to take the advice that I'm giving you you got to try because then you're just wasting my time why are you asking me right are you asking me because you want me to cuddle you you want me to make you feel good about a situation so that's number one number two is that that problem can't become my problem there's a boundary that was set you know in the last few years that I told somebody that you need to stop being there 2 am. and I get it that's your friend that's their person but they're standing in the same situation complaining about the same thing and they're not doing anything that you suggested and all you're doing is enabling them so for me it's that tough love that says you're like I'm not going to allow the situations that you are not willing to even try to change cuz some people just want I get it to be heard they just want uh a Band-Aid over their situation I'm not the Band-Aid person like I'm trying to be the surgery person I'm trying to help you heal and trying to help you fix it and change it and listen I know I can't do it for you but don't call me if you don't want Solutions because what happens is is now your stress becomes my stress and now what happens is is that you're waking waking me up in the middle of the night because you're not dealing with the things you're talking about the same things like like and can I say this yeah please I had to tell somebody recently what are you going to do about it and they come to you with a problem and the same problem I said okay what are you going to do about it we know we understand this person is like this you it's the same thing over and over and over what are you going to do about it are you going to keep complaining about the things that you're not willing to change because at some point it's not their fault no more you know who they are you know what they giving you you know exactly exactly who they are they have shown you who they are but you're choosing to believe something different that is on you now and that's a conversation a lot of people don't want to have because as long as we are blaming the other person even if they're treating us bad it keeps us in a place of oh it's their fault why I'm not healing no it's on you now you have to find the strength to be able to let go and I know it's hard but I think it takes more strength to hold on to something that's ruining your life than it is to let go at some point and so yeah I had to make that boundary set and it was tough it was a hard conversation but I refuse to allow somebody's stress to become my stress and now their problem becomes my problem and now I'm a problem to my kids I'm a problem to my team I'm irritated all because of a situation that has nothing to do with my life so oh my God I love this so how did you actually articulate that to them then at that at that point just like that because you know I'm I'm always going to at first give you know steps of why and I'm going to give reason but again when you're a grown adult and we both know what it is I'm going to be Stern and firm I'm going to stand in my ground and I'm going to be very Unapologetic about it and I had to tell this person you're addicted to your sad story that's the problem your sad story is bringing you value you're still talking about the person I get it I understand and if you listen to this I'm not trying to be insensitive but you're still talking about the person from five years ago they moved on with their life they living their life but they're still controlling you and I think Lisa one of the worst ways to live life is allowing something or someone that's no longer a part of your life to continue to control your life so I said at some point you either going to stay in your sad story and it's going to be the rest of your story you're going to tell your grandkids that it was this person's fault cool or you going to turn the page and start a new chapter and that person started a new chapter wow some people need to be straight up because I don't like the sugar coat at some point because I'm going to let you know I love you too much to not tell you what's real I love you too much to see you walk off a cliff and not tell you to stop I love you too much so yeah I'mma yell at you I'mma give you some tough love and you're probably going to thank me later but probably months later after you you know get out that situation how do you make sure then they don't then spiral even more down in those situation or are you just saying look that I just can't take that on you know it's tough at times because some people have but I'm willing to live with that because this is a situation where I'm talking about five six eight nine 10 conversations you know what I mean it's not just like one or two this is like they're living their life on repeat the same thing right they are rewinding things that need to be deleted from their life and so at that point yes some people have lost themselves but the truth is and this might not be popular to say sometimes you got to Lose Yourself I lost myself and I found my best life so who am I to get in the way of that and so what I do is I release you I'm out here I call it playing God I can't play God I can't make you do something so I'm going to release you I'm going to tell you what I would want to say I'm I'm going to tell you my piece take it or leave it but I'm going to release you I'm going to say this is the life that you're choosing I'm always here for you if you need me but I can can I can no longer keep having these conversations because it's taken away from my life and so that's a boundary I'm saying yes to myself at that point if you're not feeling strong and healthy on the inside it's nearly impossible to show up and crush your goals and dreams take it from me I ignored my health for so long and it had such a negative impact on my life my confidence and my self-esteem and that's why I want to tell you about Joy Women's Wellness Joy Women's Wellness helps women like you and me take control of our well-being so we can feel like us again Joy Women's Wellness will do a simple blood draw and then give you a super indepth Functional Health Report and together with your clinician you can come up with a game plan for how to balance your hormones get your energy back and start sleeping through the night so prioritize your health and just feel better from the inside out click the link below and run over to Joy to get your levels checked right now and guys if you use my coupon code they're going to give you 10% discount so you can go and get started that's choose jooy doco that's so beautiful and so hard to do it is um because we're going to go back to something you said right at the beginning of this interview where you said we carry so much shame and guilt with us yeah and in that moment that shame and guilt and I mean God this just came to mind um that have you had do you know bosma St John I heard him that yeah I've had her on my show before incredible and she started she was in a toxic relationship and her boyfriend at the time was living in a different country and so he was he was manic depressive I mean there was a whole lot of issues and she just kept setting these boundaries and she he kept threatening her to in order to try and renegotiate her boundaries and it was like I'm going to kill myself so he kept threatening suicide and and that was him trying to control her and one day she's just like no I'm I'm not going to be controlled by him and he calls her and his threatens to commit suicide she goes out she ignores the call she comes back and there's like three voice messages one voice message is like I told you not to go I told you I was going to take my life second message is like all right you've been warned third message he's on the bridge about to take his life she calls him he took his life and when I think about obviously going to extreme now but like the fact that she's been able to get through it and not hold on to that guilt because I asked her like I think it's very important to have set that boundary because then the other world is you live your entire life being controlled by someone who's manipulating using their life as the threat to control you but it's so freaking hard obviously that is Extreme right and I i' never wish that on anyone but that's the sort of type of guilt that we end up carrying with us of like if I say no if I push back if I set a boundary on someone that actually needs my help or is asking for the help how do I let go of the guilt no matter what ends up happening to them yeah I think that's a good question and when it comes to guilt for me and I still deal with guilt from time to time but I have to always go back to my process of guilt and just ask myself a few questions like did I give my all did I really give this person a chance and if I have nothing but yeses then I have to still be able to let go of the guilt and move through with it because truth is like you don't leave people behind they choose to stay behind and that's helped me so much in my life because yes I've had guilt to where it's like man I want to do everything for everybody I made a promise to my mother and I'll just share share this and it's on my heart too I made a promise to my mother when she died that that everybody would be okay it's all on me and that was so heavy at the moment it was like yeah it's I got everybody but I carried that weight with me for years and I'm trying to make sure everybody's okay everybody's good and all the things and it was literally tearing my life apart and I felt guilty starting to tell people no but I realized like wait a minute I sent the invitation wait a minute I did my best I did help and so I changed the conversation it goes from instead of thinking about what could be it's more about what really was what did I really do and I hold on to that because we can go well if I don't do this then this person might do this and this and this and this and like that's a rabbit hole that doesn't serve your soul I go to my my truth and whatever comes with that yes it might hurt it might be devastating but I know I made the right decision because I go by my principles I go by my standards and so I had to be able to tell people no and break their heart but the and there's two sides of it one side was yes their life got worse the other side was for other people their life got better and so yeah it's tough to set boundaries but you got to because the alternative is you lose yourself like with with the lady you were talking about if she don't set those boundaries that might be her that's dead at some point and so I would rather you know set a boundary I know it leads to a better life and I know how close you were with your mom and you know going through her passing how difficult that was most people carry that for the rest of their lives most people live their entire life and I made this promise how can I you know the guilt the shame the embarrassment I told my mom and and then it become their life becomes worse because of that and I love how you just processed it because I think I didn't know your mom but as a woman if I had a son that did that it's like I'm proud that you were able to do what's best for you yeah I was killing myself literally trying to make sure everybody else is Happy everybody else is good and when you're in position I'm sure you can relate like when you're in a position where you know you have the opportunity to to help things and change things and you we so much of that there's a lot of people that might not be in the position I was in but they're in that position where they have they feel like it's all on them and they have to do so much and um I got to a place where I was depressed and I couldn't even serve my mission and my purpose so I had to set a boundary with grief like I had to set a boundary with that and say you know what I can't continue to do this and how it changed was I thought about my mom and I thought about who she really was and if she was to have a conversation with me she would call me and say Trent you better stop trying to take care of everybody else you better go live your life they grown yeah and so I replayed those conversations in my head and I made the decision to as I would call let people fly my God let people fly um you also say that you just got to be willing that if you set this boundary if you do X Y and Z that you have to just be willing that PE some people won't going to aren't going to like it and they're going to away and so this thing that you've maybe built and you've got your heart on and you set the boundary for your own peace if they walk away you just got to be willing to let them go yeah you know I don't know if it's my introverted self that makes it a little bit easier for me but I'm willing to I'm willing to like lose it all for my peace and I'm okay with that I've been at Rock Bottom before you know I mean I've seen the worst of the worst and I'm okay with going back there I'm okay with spending time with myself now that's a big thing Lisa like knowing how to spend time with yourself and enjoying your own company I talk about in the book disconnecting off the me going out nature that is me going out and figuring out who Tren is who Tren is despite the followers despite how people see me despite all the status stuff in this world like who am I at my core what do I need am I being who I need to be what do I need to fix what do I need to change and I spend so much time with myself that I've learned to enjoy my own company right I have a quote that I love to say like you know I'm marching at to beat My Own Drum and I'm loving the sound at some point in my past I didn't like the sound I was afraid that people are like oh you're beating too loud you're off beat like and that used to bother me but now I love the sound because I spend time with myself and I think the more you spend time with you and you fall in love with you you find love with who you are you start to realize like if it goes back to me being by myself and me being alone of course I don't wanted to but I'm okay with it and I'll figure it out so the beat of your own drum you talk about a story in your book about how you were like you were going out with all the boys and you were going to clubs and um so that's you beating at somebody else's drum yeah for sure if somebody else controlling the sticks and beating on my drum or you know it's me allowing my drum to match the Cadence of somebody else cuz I'm so afraid right you know you listen to a band like you can't be off B you got to match the band and so with me I wanted to even though I didn't like playing that sound and playing that Cadence and Rhythm I knew that it was more for my more to my life and I knew this was expired it's like man if I get off beat if I do something different then I'mma stand out in the worst way where I can be crucified or like you know where my friends leave me and so yeah I've learned over time and it takes time and I know a lot of people listen to this like easier said I had somebody tell me this yesterday and I actually had a different approach somebody said easy for you right and I said you're right at this point it is and I said you know why because when I was at my rock bottom I said one day I'm G get to a point in my life where somebody says exactly that it's easy for you because I put in the work I did the I did the I put in work I I did all the things I need to work on my emotional my state my emotional health you're right or somebody says oh you're so lucky yeah I wanted to get to that place where people said that cuz I knew at my rock bottom that was my vision to get to a place where people my hard work and my success luck people call my family life luck and all these things but it's the work that was put in for me to get to this place oh my God that's so beautiful I love that on your rock bottom you're like I want to get to that one day cuz I was like who offended I was like what do you mean it's easy to him do you know the word this man put in I'm like defending you like jumping in your but that's how you know that's how we deflect you know and I understand because I was at that place oh that's easy for you to say and we can make up all these stories to make us feel as if you know our our situation our circumstance is permanent like we don't have a way out because if we get information that's the scary part about information some people don't want to hear it or receive it because if I have the information on what to do then I have no more excuses and so that was me at a point but yeah I got the other day oh it's easy for you to say and I think it's self soothing in that moment right when you're if you're really struggling and you feel almost a little hopeless or helpless like looking and saying that goes yeah well it's easy for them and now it's almost giving you permission to not try there you go which is I don't think a wise way to do it but um you even said like when you hit rock bottom I've been there so I'm not afraid to go back there what's the difference then between someone like that someone like you that can say that and other people who are like I've been to Rock Bottom I never want to go there again and so they actually then adopt unhealthy Behavior so they never get to Rock Bottom versus you saying I'm going to adopt such healthy behavior that even if I get to Rock Bottom I've been there so I can do it again yeah I think you hit the now on the head it's the it's the work that was put in that Rock Bottom you know I think the people that say I don't want to go back there which I mean I don't want to want to go back there you know what I mean but if you do I'm okay I'm okay and it's because of the work that was put in you know at my rock bottom you know sometimes we get saved at Rock Bottom in the way of like you know somebody we get in a relationship or something like that or it it takes us from Rock Bottom but we never really put in work and so it's like I don't want to go back there because I don't know how to deal with that and so if you're that person right now you need to start having habits and things in your life that are foundational that if something leaves you if something if you lose something you don't lose yourself and so that's why I say that because I did the work and I continue to do the work day in and day out the things that we always talk about that seems like oh that's going to change your life that's going to help you all I it's we look for this magic portion or formula to love oursel and the truth is is like you giving love to yourself that's it you stop accepting less you pour into yourself you do the things that make you happy you fall in love with the image you see in the mirror you're flawed imperfect self and you love that because you're perfectly you and you really Embrace that and that's what it is we can have steps all day long but that's what it is it's being good with who you are that's worth and a lot of times with worth because that word popped in my soul I talk about demand your worth and what really shifted my life is realizing where my worth was at so some people aren't are afraid to go back there because their worth is tied to all these external things if you have a conversation with somebody they don't feel worthy because somebody doesn't love them they weren't accepted the job doesn't appreciate them everything external your worth is tied to something circumstantial my worth was tied to football my worth was tied to my friends and so when those things left I didn't feel worthy what if you tied your Worth to something that was permanent and I have my faith I have what I tie mine to what if it was I was given worth at Birth and I know that seems like a cool saying but it's true what if it's I'm uniquely me and I'm going to embrace that and so there are some things if you're watching this you don't feel like you're enough you got to cut the strings is your work tied to your job cut the strings if you're work tied to social media the algorithm cut the strings even in the relationship cut the strings yes I know it's a part of who I am but who I am is who I am that adds to my worthiness it doesn't make me worthy so that's what really helped and shift my life really taking back my worth and saying I'm worth it I've been worth it now I will forever be worth it I say that every single day because Lisa I'm a human and sometimes I don't feel like I'm worth it because of whatever reason but I tell myself to remind myself you're worth it not because of what you do not because of what you provide not because of how people see you you're worth it because that's how you were created to be oh my God I was trying to remember everything just said like there's so many good quotes there but like they add to your worth they don't make you worthy they add to it they add to your life right we don't want to and and people have different views of this but for me I don't want a person to complete me I want them to add to my completeness I want to have two complete people come together and make something even greater now there's times where yes that person is the missing piece to your puzzle and it works perfectly but often times you're looking for somebody to fill a void in your life that's missing maybe you know it was daddy issues growing up so you're looking for somebody to feel that void but they're really not complete themselves they just they just are the missing piece to your puzzle in that area but they're really not complete or you're not complete and you get into a situation over time where you realize like man I'm not even complete I don't even know who I am this person doesn't know who they are and there's so many people in that so I tell people come complete and let a person add to your completeness let a person like come with a full cup let them make your cup run over do that and it's hard to get to that point because it takes patience but I think a lot of eyes are looking for the person to complete them the person to feel that void instead of looking within themselves to give themselves that completeness to be honest I just think it's dangerous because the second they're in a bad mood of they're going through something now you're relying on them to complete you but they can't even complete themselves in that moment and so they're bringing that energy to your life and so how are you going to complete yourself if you're just accepting that from someone else so you actually mentioned about how you you were a footballer and I me you've had s your your your whole career is just mind-blowingly incredible and I love how you've really evolved but take me back to that moment right where you you talk about it in your book how you had these dreams right you were playing football you were going to buy a mansion your kids college funds were all sorted you you'd envisioned what that was going to look like and it didn't pan out and you said you I can't remember the words but like you blinked and you didn't then continue your football career and you end up like living at home or something like that yeah yeah I was staying with my parents yeah so how knowing that right you have a vision it doesn't pan out and it's actually becomes the opposite what habits did you actually have to adopt then in order for you to build your self worth back and feel good about yourself that um that now your title of what you do or who you are didn't impact your worthiness yeah man that was the hard well up until a few years ago that was the hardest time in my life for sure and um I I had to build me like I didn't know who I was without football like I never worked a 95 in my life even to this day I never worked at 905 since I was 5 years old I played Sports so when I lost that and I like to tell people if if it's not Sports think about your everything whatever that is and I lost that at 25 5 years old okay what do I do cuz I never worked a job at school I took speech Communications it's funny how it worked out but I took that because it was the easy class I had no interest in being a speaker I just wanted to make it to NFL so I lost that and I lost my life so at that moment I was really faced with a choice you can sink or you can swim my one of my best friends committed suicide so that was a big Catalyst for me to say man I'm not too far away from that so I got to do something with my life I got a one-year-old son and I remember at my parents house in my room looking around at trophies and picturers and Tristan big picture in my room still still Vivid and I asked myself this question is it over that's it but something inside my soul internally said this is just the beginning and there was no Lisa physical and I want people to hear this because it's so easy to be like oh Trent I see millions of people it's so easy no please hear me when I say this there was no external evidence of this would be my life at all I didn't even want to be a speaker I'm an introvert by nature and just weird how it works so for me at that moment I said okay what do I need in my life and so my organization is rehab time but rehab time started with the mindset of giving myself what I need wasn't to be anything where we see now mind I need to strengthen my mind I started reading books I didn't read books then like my mentor was Lil Wayne at the time like seriously this Lil Wayne No No for sure but yeah absolutely that was music that was my thing hip-hop that was where my mentors the Jay-Z's the the list goes on those were my mentors I never picked up a book like that especially finished the book and I picked up personal development books then M then body I said you know what I'm in shape but I'm abusing my body also by things that I shouldn't be doing putting in my body drugs alcohol Etc hard drugs to be real at that time so I said I want to cleanse my life and detox myself and then the last part was soul with my faith and my religion I said you know what I need to really live it I need to see what it's like to seek a relationship with my Creator not the one my grandmother gave me not the one my mom gave me I need to make it real and so what I did was I proved it to myself so we talk about strategy I would tell you to prove it to yourself that's it Go prove it to yourself and I'm going to say this go try go find out I went to go find out I thought my life was over Lisa so I went to go find out and what I found out that was just beginning so if you feel like your life is over you feel like you're heartbroken you feel like there's nothing more to your life go find out spoiler alert you're going to find out that you made for more you're going to find out that it's better to your life and that's what I did so yes habit wise the reading the the you know the the morning routines like all the things like that we talk about I did those but the main thing was my only job in that moment was to prove myself wrong because I thought my life was over that's it I want to go prove myself wrong and I did and now where I'm at now I go prove myself right because my mindset has shifted like I believe that I could do the write a book and things like that and so go find out when that person says you can't live without me go find out go see and what you're going to find out is that there's a future that's waiting to give you better than what you're currently settling [Music] for the G find out is so amazing like that should be like a tagline for you because whenever I'm in an emotional space I need something to go to because I know you said earlier Right facts over feelings I'm the feelings person I'm like well my feelings must be right because I'm feeling and I realize it's not because every time every time in hindsight not every time but most times in hindsight I'm like yeah you were too sensitive this happened so you agitated whatever right and so what do I do to get me out of it because I need that like Snap if I've just got go find out Lisa just go find out it kind of eases the stress in the anxiety of what if it fails what if what if what if right my mind starts running and so I love that and then also it allows you to almost push back when someone's being a little manipulative or toxic yeah because my ex-boyfriend before Tom he was extremely verbally abusive manipulative I don't throw around the word narcissist but maybe um and I remember him turning around to me one day and because I just had enough right it was like I just got the strength and I'm just like I'm leaving and he turns around to me and he said you're never going to find anyone that loves me as much as I do yeah and that hooked me y it really hooked me and I don't know at what period this was in our relationship but I'm almost certain I stayed for another year and so that idea of we just go find out and you found out I did find out I did and you found exactly I mean that's I I I teach on moving on I have the art of moving on that I teach on so like I have have a program called that and that's what I tell people like cuz that's the number one thing like I feel like and I just say all right go find out let's just start there and it's a big part of moving on because what happens is I always say moving on is less about what you're moving on from and it's more about what you're moving on to it's completely that a lot of times we focus on oh I'm trying to get over this person if you focus on getting over this person you're putting your energy on this person so moving on says I have no idea maybe where I'm going necess necessarily but I know I'm not staying here and so that's my trigger go find out you might not know what's going to happen but you know that you're not staying here and what's going to happen is you're going to find that you're capable you're going to find something inside you that you love about yourself you didn't realize about yourself you're going to find an inner strength me as a speaker I went to go find out everything in my life me as a football player I went to go find out and I found that I'm actually worthy of something and that was the energy that really pushed me through my hardest times well now I love how this conversation has really evolved right because if you've gone from identifying who isn't good for you putting in the boundaries knowing your self worth and then the moving on piece what other things you said that you you have a course what other little things if you don't mind sharing once you've got your starting to move on what are the things that you can keep doing so that you don't keep getting pulled back like I said right my ex hooked me so cuz that first step what I think is it uh alcoholics where it's like it takes like seven times or something thing to go from like to try and actually give up alcohol to on average so I'm thinking about the moveing on step of like how many people then do that first step it's like okay I'm moving on and then they get pulled back in what other things can we do to make sure that we don't get pulled back in yeah so I'll say this because we talked about boundaries we talk about having your facts so all those things need to be in place like you need to have a reminders like of where you're you got to have reminders like I said put their name in the phone they're a liar put liar pain like I got people in my phone that literally when they call I'm like yep I remember you know what I mean I'm being honest I do I do because I don't trust myself I don't trust myself to to have always a strong heart or being strong emotionally I don't always trust myself I'm a remind it and that triggers how I felt every time I see it that triggers what they gave me so you got to have those things but what I would tell you and I tell this to everybody when you go find out the first step is just to survive without that situation because if they were your oxygen it's GNA be hard to breathe for a little bit I don't care what anybody says how they did you there was something there at some point that chemically you were bonded to that's why it's hard to break free from things because chemically we're bonded to that person so it's easy to say just move on but chemically it's hard to so we have to detox our life from that so the first step is just survive and figure out what that looks like if you got to you know call up the girls you know I mean you got to do certain things whatever it may be figure figure out what that looks like is going to help you survive and help you from getting back and don't trust yourself so make sure you set up booby traps like when you try to go back make sure you don't trust yourself and then second thing is ask yourself what is it going to take me to get from surviving to actually thriving because that's when it changes and I'm sure in your past relation once you realize like wait a minute my life is better off without this dude I definitely ain't going back like I realized like what that was like I definitely ain't going back and that's the place you have to get to but it takes time it might take a month it might take a year it might take two years but you got to be committed to that and knowing that that is coming because once you get to the place where you know that you can live and Thrive and live your best life without that person oh you ain't going back it's over then but you got to get there and so have those things set in place that when your emotions take over you're still focused on what you're moving on to and not what you're moving on from what happens is in your mind we're thinking that man my I can't live my best life without them and then once you start you know whether it be getting in shape or you start a business and you start doing these things without them subconsciously you're realizing like wait a minute this person was probably holding me back I'm a better version of myself without them so you prove it to yourself over and over and over again then it becomes easier to keep moving forward with your life so put some goals in place do some things right treat yourself right you know uh set some big goals for yourself and accomplish that because once you do that it becomes a lot easier not to go back because you realize they were holding you back so I've seen that help so many people it's helped my life um even with friendships once I realized like man this was a dead weight I definitely ain't picking that weight back up I loved your analogy with the addiction thing because we don't think of it like that if someone let's face it was an alcoholic or had been doing drugs and was a drug addict for long time you would go okay they need rehab they need a program they need steps um you can't just go stop and then expect them love is the strongest addiction it's the strongest addiction love is stronger I feel like than any drug I think love is the strongest freaking addiction and you got to look at it like that like you're addicted to that person that's what it is you are chemically tied Soul TI whatever you want to call it you are chemically bonded to that person so every single time you go back just for a little bit then you start the process all over again and it becomes that harder to leave that situation so look at it as an addiction label I know it's a strong word but label it's an addiction so I need to have a process three steps 12 steps whatever steps you may have to be able to detox from this situation so I can be healed from it and then it also eliminates the potential like guilt or shame of like but I really want to go back it's like it's okay to want to go back like have that instinct course because just like alcohol you're never going to be like well tomorrow you should be able to walk into a bar and be able to deny the alcohol like anyone even I've never been addicted to alcohol but I could just imagine like oh no of course you would never expect somebody who's addicted to alcohol and over trying trying to overcome it to be able to walk into a bar and say no but with relationships or love with the heart it's like oh what do you mean you want to go back I don't you know don't you remember what he how he treated you and so that that really hit me so strong that's not and that's not healthy healing like if you are if you are denying that you want to you're not healthy healing like I even be like like sometimes we go into another relationship before we heal That's not healthy healing and sometimes it works like I'm sure there's a unicorn out there that's made it work but a lot of times then we bring our hurt self into a good relationship we make people pay for mistakes they didn't make and now we bringing our past mistakes to something that's good so you're right like when it gets to that point you got to say man I even missed like it's okay to miss somebody doesn't mean you're not healing like you're going to miss people you're going to miss that person but just because you miss them don't mean need to go back to them you got to remind yourself of that but to think that oh I'm over this person and to get online and try to prove to that's another people pleasing I got to prove to everybody online that I moved on that I'm good that I'm that I'm strong that this situation ain't bothering me that's crazy to think like that especially you've been in a situation for years like you're not weak because you you're weak to towards them that's love so it takes time to get over that but you got to go through proper healing to get through that so impressing people online you know uh even to be real uh being in competition with that person that happens a lot it's oh they with somebody so let me get with somebody let me show that I'm more healed than them let me show that yes I'm over this person and that's a problem and what happens is you create an unhealthy cycle of relationships and there's people out there and listen if you're here you can change it so I'm not judging you this is all out of love but you create an unhealthy cycle of relationships over and over and over again you never giving yourself time to heal which goes back to beginning of our conversation you got to learn how to love to be with yourself and go through that process of missing that person crying screaming wanting to call them and not calling them you got to go through that it's a part of the process of healing just make sure no matter what you protect your peace that's right Tren this has been absolutely incredible dude I freaking love you to bit your book is amazing where can people find you and your book that is now officially out it is you can find it at trentshelton.com um Amazon anywhere you buy books and then follow me at Tren Shelton if you want to learn the four signs that you're in an unhealthy relationship then keep watching yeah so like a lot of communication is non-verbal and often times we Overlook the non-verbal communication when we're talking about communication skills and how we communicate and a huge huge huge thing is is turning towards someone when we are communicating with them how often when someone's trying to talk to you are you looking away or looking at your phone um are you not looking at them and and so that's just making eye contact turning towards their really simple things that we can do to improve our non-verbal communication and really send um signs of Engagement and safety to the other person when they're communicating with us showing them that we're curious and that we're interested and so the Gman Institute has done tons of research on couples and um they follow couples you know over six years they'll follow couples they'll check in five years after marriage 10 years and um to really see they're trying to figure out what works in relationships and what doesn't and so um in their research they're they found that there are four types of communication that predict the end of a relationship so the first type of communication that predicts end of a relationship is criticism and we all know what criticism sound like sounds like it's you never help with the cleaning you're so forgetful or you never consider me and you'll notice that criticism almost always starts with a word you and I found that when one partner is trying to bring something up that they want to talk to the the other person about maybe it's something that they're want wanting to change um they do it by criticizing and use statements and I see that all the time and we can predict the way that a conversation will go 96% of the time based on the first three minutes of the conversation the first three minutes determines how this conversation is going to go so it's really important to learn how to start a conversation well and how often do we do we try to bring something up with a criticism by criticizing someone and so instead of starting a conversation with you um you statements like you didn't do this or you this or or you know there are so many you statements that we we have a lot a lot yeah um I give couples a formula to use that starts with i and the formula is I feel blank about blank I need blank so for example instead of criticizing and saying you never help with the dishes you can say I feel overwhelmed about the dishes I need some help and it's even better if you end with appreciation or a compliment because it helps your partner to feel appreciated and loved and they're more likely to help you out and so then contempt is the second type of communication and this is the single greatest predictor of divorce according to the Gman institute's research and contempt looks like mocking the other person ridiculing them calling them names and insulting them or mimicking or using sarcasm or rolling your eyes those are all examples and signs of contempt and it's really just a disregard for the other person that comes from a belief of moral superiority so it's fueled by negative thoughts about the other person and an example of contempt would be rolling your eyes and saying I get it you don't have to tell me a million times do you think I can't hear or something um that's one that I've heard and that that one's that one's rough and so the antidote to contempt is building a culture of appreciation and respect in your relationship by reminding yourself of the the other person's positive qualities and why you love them and expressing appreciation and feeling gratitude for what they're doing right it's looking for what they're doing right and assuming the best rather than assuming that they have bad intentions and then doing small positive things for them every day to show that you love them man contempt is such a strong topic and I believe it becomes a stacking Stone it's not just that you wake up one day and then all of a sudden you have contempt for somebody so what do you do or how do you prevent cont so you actually said you know saying nice things to someone like maybe on a daily basis or things like that like that's great but how do you prevent someone else for having contempt for you you can't right we can't control others behaviors we can't control others thoughts we can we can set boundaries and and ask for respect and communication um we can ask them hey can we retry this can you you know or say I'm feeling I'm feeling attacked right now or um I'm feeling hurt by the way that you communicated that can we can we try again and and reconnect and so there are ways you can't control whether or not they feel contempt or Express contempt but we can we can set boundaries and we can ask for respectful and kind communication wow I really like that so if you're sensing contempt in your partner kind of stop address it say hey you've really you know Express how you feel about that I think that's super important um and then highlight it because here's I think what a lot of people do myself included back before I had a growth mindset um I would ignore it right I would ignore the contempt or and it would just start to build inside me build inside me build inside me right people start it keeps giving me the dirty look but it's like oh it must be in my imagination and you end up ignoring it until one day it ends up becoming like the the biggest fracture in your relationship yeah yeah and it usually does it builds up slowly over time if we don't address it immediately it you know it kind of sits in in the back of our minds and then it happens again and again and again and that's where we start building these protective walls that create distance um we you know naturally we're we're wanting to protect ourselves if we're feeling attacked or if we're feeling like the other person is expressing contempt we might get defensive and that's the third one is defensiveness and that's really a way that we try to protect ourselves by resing the blame and making it seem like it's the other person's fault and this almost always escalates because when one person get offensive usually the other person does too and so we combat defensiveness by taking responsibility for our actions and getting curious and trying to understand where is the other person coming from what is their perspective and can you set aside your own thoughts and feelings for a moment to try to understand where they're coming from can you feel empathy for how they're feeling and can you take responsibility for your part in the conflict or in the situation and offer an apology if it's needed yeah that's so true um I'm curious on what the fourth one is yeah the fourth one is stonewalling which is shutting down and withdrawing because you're emotionally overwhelmed and when Stone Walling happens your nervous system is flooded which means that your heart rate is increased and you're in figh or flight or your sympathetic nervous systems activated your your body releases stress hormones and now you've dropped down into a free state and when you're in a free state you'll usually stop responding um you'll turn away maybe you'll act busy or you'll tune the other person out pretend like you can't hear them and you're really just trying to avoid confrontation and you're shutting down in self- protection and stonewalling is especially frustrating to the other person because usually they take this to mean that you don't care because it seems like you don't care and so how we address stonewalling is we take a 20 minute break to selfed and I say 20 minutes because re research has found that it takes an average of 20 minutes for your body to calm down and for your nervous system to regulate when it's disregulated so or when you're flooded so take a break plan a time to come back to the conversation and spend those 20 minutes practicing self-care or doing something that will help you to regulate and sooe your nervous system and something that's interesting is that research has found that women tend to criticize more and men are more likely to stone wall that doesn't surprise me to be honest um you just mentioned flooding but I've never really heard much about it can you talk to me a little about flooding yeah so flooding is when we we have our neuroception is always looking for cues of danger and cues of safety and if we are getting some signs of danger usually we are in Conflict um our neuroception is always asking is this is this person safe can I trust them do they care about me and if we start to feel like they don't care or um if we have any cues of danger our nervous system will go into fight or flight and our sympathetic nervous system gets active activated and so typically then our heart rate will increase um blood pressure sometimes increases we start to feel emotionally overwhelmed we can we can feel anxious and so when we get flooded we'll either fight or flight and if we feel like neither of those are going to work we'll shut down and we'll we'll drop down into that freeze state that we talked about and um and that's typically when stonewalling happens but the key is to learn how to regulate your nervous system if you notice that you're starting to get activated and flooded um to take a break to self soothe to regulate your nervous system because if you're flooded your prefrontal cortex um is is essentially offline we're not able to think clearly we're not really able to fully listen to another person and understand where they're coming from because we're in that survival mode and all of our protective defenses are up yeah I love that um that breakdown and then I've heard you say one way of just kind of eliminating it is just like give a give give your partner a hug yeah yeah give your partner a hug make a repair attempt turning towards the other person to co-regulate a hug is a way to co-regulate so we can we can self regulate which means we self- soothe um breathing exercises are a really great way to self-regulate uh progressive muscle relaxation um there are a lot of different ways that you can regulate your own nervous system but we can also co-regulate or regulate our nervous systems with another person when we're flooded to help us calm down and so a hug is one way to do that um taking a deep breath together just pausing to repair and send some cues of safety and remind each other that you care in that moment because that will help your body to feel more safe and that will help your nous system to relax a little bit more so you can shift back into that parasympathetic safe and social state yeah that's there's something the power of a hug and that's the one thing that bums me out about um Co is I'm such a hugger and I got so much pleasure out of hugging people that um it's sadly no longer something I can regularly do but there is something to a hug I I totally agree there um so the studies on the Gutman Institute you said that they followed couples six years after they were got married and the per people that ended in divorce um Turned out they were only turning towards each other 33% of the time and the cou that ended up in a successful happy marriage turn towards each other 86% of the time just turn towards yeah turning towards and so we make bids for connection um to our partners to to people um all the time whether it's just saying hey look at this or asking a question or anytime we're we're talking to someone we're making an effort to connect with them and so they they they observed couples and they noticed that that the couples that didn't last they didn't turn towards each other and the couples that did last when when one partner tried to get their attention they turned towards them they responded they put down what they were doing they looked up looked at the other person and responded and um I've had to be I've started to be very aware of that in my relationships if someone is seeking my attention am I making them the PRI priority or am I making whatever else I'm doing the priority and and where are priorities here and it's so so important to respond and to turn towards each other when someone's seeking your attention yeah and I actually heard someone a long time ago actually um it was like a study and they said you can also tell how well someone's going to last based on how they tell the story of how they met so if you ask the couple like oh how did you guys meet based on if they say in like a light-hearted way if they jump in on oh no baby it happened like this or if one person is just saying the other person's staying silent and I was like that's that's actually really fascinating to see and so now I'm very conscious if anyone ever asks me I'm like I'm put in like excitement and energy because um I think it's really good to keep going back to your roots of where you as a couple first started and keep that energy alive yeah I've noticed that in sessions when I ask couples about their relationship history couples that are in happy relationships tend to remember and share their positive memories and they also frame their difficulties or struggles in the relationship from a place of learning they talk about how they've grown from their struggles and how they draw strength from that I mean couples who only share negative memories and have difficulty remembering the positive memories that's when you know that negative negativity is starting to outweigh the positive in a relationship and usually this escalation of negativity happens gradually and slowly and it happens over time and you start to express less interest in each other's lives you show less appreciation you compliment each other less and less and you'll slowly start to notice their flaws and start to entertain more and more negative thoughts about each other and without that open communication and repairs before you know it you're feeling a lot of resentment and frustration you'll feel like you've fallen out of love and lost the spark and um you'll start this cycle of negativity and distance that really doesn't turn around without efforts so we have to retrain our minds by starting to focus on our partner strength and positive traits and we have to start making Repairs by making efforts to connect and communicate openly and show appreciation and love for each other it's really interesting um we've been talking about some of the Gman institute's research um and they found that in stable healthy relationships the ratio of positivity to negativity during conflict is 5 to one and then during normal interactions outside of conflict it's closer to 20 to one so for every one negative interaction there need to be 20 positive ones and then in unstable relationships that are headed towards separation that ratio is closer to one: one so for NE so yeah that's one negative interaction for every positive interaction and those are the couples that don't last so this means that for every one negative interaction during conflict you need at least five positive interactions to balance it out if you want to keep your relationship stable and healthy and those five positive interactions are the repairs that we've been talking about the their efforts at reconnecting they're turning towards and just slowing down and and showing that you care about each other girl I'm so I'm so obsessed with stats um and that is so impactful what would you then suggest cuz I like I love stats it it wakes me up and then I go well now how do I use that stat to benefit my life so when I think about people at home it's like having a relationship for 20 30 for the rest of your life is difficult we change we grow we're always evolving so to me I put so much time and attention into my marriage into my relationship um and addressing the things that are wrong instead of putting blinders on and so if people and look there that's worked very well for me in my relationship and so taking those stats what would you suggest people do is it kind of stepping back and saying all right I've just heard this stat from Jordan do I stop and just assess myself for like a week and go how many times am I criticizing my partner how many compliments did I give them and vice versa and then go oh it's like two to one and kind of like Snap yourself a away like how do we actually then take that data and go let's use this to B benefit a relationship yeah I think it's it's the little things that you do every day that matter and it's it's the little stuff that adds up over time and can make a really big difference and that's also the preventative work that you can do in relationships so it's the everyday little things like complimenting your partner expressing appreciation reaching out to show affection and creating small rituals of connection throughout your day like giving a hug and kiss every time you leave the house and when you come back home and I'm not sure who first came up with this idea but there's a metaphor that I love that is the emotional bank account so every relationship has an emotional bank account and you can make deposits into this account every time you listen with your full attention every time you keep your promises when you show affection when you make repairs when you do something nice for the other person when you make deposits by doing things that build support and love and Trust in the relationship and then you make withdrawals every time you criticize or break a promise or when you don't look up from your phone when your partner's talking to you when you turn away when you don't respond and your account balance usually determines how you feel about the relationship it indicates how well you communicate and how well you resolve conflict and it's an indicator of the health of your relationship so you want to make as many deposits as possible into your relationship's emotional bank account to pull from when you're going through a rough patch or when you're going through a hard time or when you're in conflict and so it's just it's the small things over time that really do add up and make a big difference do you also hold the account details of your partner cuz what I actually loved of what you said is you look at your own deposits right what are you putting into the relationship what are you taking out of the relationship that was so strong and then it started to make me the should we do that for our partners as well or is that like now a trap where people like look see I've written down you've only made like one deposit like is that a good strategy do you think a bad strategy yeah I don't think that that is really helpful because that can bring resentment but if you're noticing that you're needing um more deposits you're needing more attention affection you're positivity from your partner that's a really great conversation that you can have together and um that way you're both conscious and aware of how how can we show each other more love how can we be making more deposits and so framing that in more of a positive way because I don't think the the scorekeeping is is helpful I know that's what I was like it really is helpful for yourself but but it almost does the complete opposite when you do it for them yeah yeah yeah I love and I also heard a quote from yours that's super interesting you said a lot of conflicts come from not feeling seen or heard and when we don't feel seen or heard we don't feel loved um that was so strong because we're talking about a lot of elements here and what make up a successful relationship um and it kind of go comes all the way back around to feeling valued feeling validated wanting to be seen having right to ask to be seen um and then if that is the one thing that falls down then you actually do not feel loved like that's so strong so how do you um ask to be seen how do you ask to be heard well and I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the the five love languages by Gary Chapman um but the whole premise of that is that we tend to give love in the way that we like to receive it and sometimes um we're needing to receive love in a little bit of a different way than it's being shown and and so just having a conversation with your partner about hey I'm needing to to feel more appreciation and love from you and and this is and this is how I would really like to be loved and it's okay to ask for that and it's okay to um to act to ask hey can we can we have some more conversations can we go on a walk every evening and just talk um because I I want to get to know you better and I want you to get to know me better and I want to stay curious about each other's inter world and what's going on with us so where's the fine line between asking your partner to reciprocate all these things that you said hey I want to go for a walk you know once a day that's something that I actually really need to feel connected to you to feel seen to be heard and they turn around and they say well want that that's way too much you're being very needy I can't give that to you and then it becomes I think a struggle between how they see it and then how you see it yeah well and I think in in a you know a healthy relationship you care about each other you care about each other's feelings and needs so if one person is feeling like I I need to be more connected to you then it's just a really important conversation to have of of this is what can we do to help you to feel more loved and safe and and connected and um and it's it's you know I think a lot of times we feel guilty like we shouldn't have to ask for that validation or appreciation or love or or to have to ask to um do activities that help us to feel more connected but it's totally okay to ask and it's so important to ask because otherwise we end up like we talked about before brushing things under the rug we end up feeling disconnected and more distant and so it's it's you know if they're not wanting to do that then you know we need to have a conversation about do we really care about each other are we really staying curious about each other's inner worlds and um are we showing empathy for each other's needs because if not then then that's that's an issue there are so many little ruptures every day whether it's just you know that moment of not turning towards each other that we talked about and um that's totally normal in relationships but the the whole like what makes the biggest difference is um is repairing how we repair those ruptures and do we turn towards each other and do we you know when we're feeling disconnected make that those efforts to reconnect and um whether it's in conflict or outside of conflict that's so important and is that a discussion that you would have with your partner and say hey do we are we committed to making the repairs of these ruptures yeah and and just having a convers like knowing what ruptures and repairs are right so it's like what what is a rupture it's a you know it's a moment of disconnection or an emotional wounding and they can be really small they can be really big big big ruptures are more more of like attachment injuries um where there's been a huge break in trust but the little ones could just be like not not maybe someone not showing empathy or um not asking you how your day was when you expect them to that could be a rupture and um so when ruptures happen over and over again without repair you slowly disconnect and build those protective walls and that's when you start to see more resentment and anger and and apathy and doubt coming up in a relationship because if there's a lot of repeated ruptures and wounding it damages the emo Bond and you don't feel safe anymore and so like we talked about our our subconscious is always looking at does the other person care are they there for me can I trust them and um and so if we don't repair it like it it hurts the the trust and the intimacy and it's kind of like a slow burn with more distance over time and so um yeah finding emotional like completion after conflict or negativity and hurts um the if we don't the resentment builds up and so we kind of have to emotionally digest you know these issues together and create emotional safety and reconnect to move forward so repairs are just you know it's a way to just shift the energy and reconnect and to show that you love each other but well I got I got a question for you Jordan I'm still let's just keep going girl because this is fascinating um is um is it ever too far gone is a a um rupture so bad that there is no repair you know it depends on if there's um a willingness to repair on both parts um where I mean the biggest rupture may be you could seen be seen as infidelity that's one that is a huge rupture because there's a huge that's a you know I call that an attachment wound like rupture is you know there's a rupture but when it's that deep it's an attachment wound and that's those are really really tough to get through and it is possible if both are willing to make the effort effs to repair if both are if you know the person who um maybe was the one who did that behavior and ruptured the relationship um is willing to take responsibility and cares about the other person and cares to repair and if both are willing to repair it's possible but it takes a lot of effort and it's not not easy to do and so like we we've talked about repairs like the the positivity turning towards each other every day there are ways to repair you know every day with the little and those are the deposits to the emotional bank account and um during conflict is the best time to make repairs it's a way to shift the energy and reconnect and remember that you love each other and how you repair depends on the nature of the rupture but just simple ways of repairing are showing your attention expressing curiosity and affection maybe reaching out to hold their hand and saying how much you appreciate them doing something nice for them making them food saying I love you there are lots of different ways to repair and it's hard to do it can be really hard to do in Conflict when we're wanting to pull away when were feeling hurt but those are the times when it's most important to repair and so it it looks different whether it's during conflict or just the everyday repairs or deposits or um after conflict it looks a little bit different but it's just bringing in more of that connection and care and positivity is what makes a big difference ah yeah I love that so much and my husband and I have a rule that like if we're in Conflict um whoever can become emotionally sober first normally I'm the one that needs to walk away I need the 20 minutes like what you said I need to regroup myself and then I come back in the room and so usually if we're in conflict and I walk out the room whoever is able to emotionally get sober first we've made a pinky swear with each other that you walk into the room whoever's again whoever's in the mood first walk into the room and go baby and if you're listening to this on podcast I put my arms up straight in the air and I smile and I scream it like with that voice even when we're we're mad at each other even when we're lived with each other we've made a deal that one of us must do it and it works like a charm because the second even if you're mad at them the second someone walks in and does that it's like wow he's willing to put it all aside and he's like he's happy he's got his arms up the tone of his voice is welcoming and it shifts the mood immediately now the only problem is sometimes you don't feel like responding right you're like no no no I'm still hurt I'm still upset by you um and so once that happened and I did the baby and he was still pissed and I said I said we made the deal you know how hard it is for me to break out and for me to do the baby we agreed you can never push back because it's hard to be the first person to do that and we agreed that if someone does the other person must reciprocate and I said you've just broken our deal you must and then of course I got mad so then he was like baby I'm like no I'm mad and it became like this this like back and forth for three times and then at the end after like the third time we're like okay this is ridiculous we both are just you know trying to make it better we're trying to heal we're trying to you know repair this wound and we're like kind of like actually opening the wound more and more so let's do it together one two three we did the baby and then we solved our problem I love that you found that fun way to to make repairs you're doing it naturally and we do it naturally without realizing that we're doing it but sometimes when we put language to it gives context and then we can be more conscious to look out for do we need a repair has there been a rupture and how does that happen and and you can plan like like you you've made that decision like this is how we repair this is how we show each other I'm trying to make a repair right now and you can even just say I'm trying to I'm trying to reconnect I'm trying to make things better this is really hard for me but I'm trying to tell you that I that I love you right and some couples come up with like a code word like giraffe or you know like a watermelon or just something silly that's like an inside joke and that humor can really help to to break the ice and to to bring you back together and remind each other we love each other this is why we're here together it's totally normal to experience times of disconnection in our relationships a lot of people think that we shouldn't have conflict we have these beliefs from childhood or just from society that we shouldn't have conflict that um and so so we avoid it or we feel like there's something wrong but it's totally normal to experience conflict there's totally it's totally normal to experience times of disconnection in your relationship and we usually go through Cycles of connection and disconnection cycles of closeness and more distance and that's pretty normal but it does take work to reconnect when there's distance or if you're feeling disconnected because we can't expect to see change in the relationship if we're not changing our thoughts and words and our actions and patterns of communicating and interacting and making efforts to show each other that we love that we love each other that's fantastic um there's something that I heard you say where I was like oh we've got to talk about this because again it goes to like the Nuance of the the comment so I've heard you actually say that um there are there are certain fundamental needs that every single human need that every human needs and there's two that I pulled out and there was actually an Instagram post that you did and there's two one was certainty and the other one was uncertainty and so I was like that is so amazing that they contradict each other and yet you need both and in a relationship I think we look for for certainty and the second there is uncertainty it makes us feel unnerved in the relationship so how do we take the fundamental needs as a human of the uncertainty of growing um and yet use that as a strength in our relationship instead of potentially a weakness yeah and there's there's there is a balance right because we want to feel a sense of safety and emotional Security in a relationship but at the same time if there isn't any sort of uncertainty and uncertainty can look like a lot of different things it can look like um surprises like that we're going on a surprise date you know that that's that's the fun sort of uncertainty that it's really healthy to have a good balance of that and uncertainty in the sense that we also like recognizing we don't know everything about each other I've been in a relationship with someone for eight years and we're still learning about each other every day and so there's there's that balance between the certainty and the uncertainty and when there's a lot of uncertainty especially in our external World in our environment especially this last year year year and a half there's been a lot of uncertainty in the world um our relationships can help to buffer us from that when we create a sense of safety and certainty and um in the relationship but there's a balance there's a balance to everything if you want to learn what boundaries to set to avoid betrayal and manipulation then click here right now when somebody makes you doubt your boundary or question it do they have my best interest in mind and the answer is always going to be you [Music] know

Channel: Lisa Bilyeu

Views: 139,088

Keywords: Lisa Bilyeu, Women of Impact, Radical Confidence, interview show, podcast, mindset, self improvement, inspirational women, self love, confidence, women empowerment, self confidence tips, women supporting women, dating, relationships, RadCon, bestselling author, women, tips for women, interview

Id: rmyXHpeisRI

Length: 130min 54sec (7854 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 10 2024