Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk Podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. The eight Rules of Love, Ja Shetty
Speaker 1: says you must know. Say it again is highly anticipated.
Speaker 1: Findings are revealed now on this exclusive Red Table Talk.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about I'm so glad you. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: was like home. You blessed the table so many times.
Speaker 1: So grateful you you blessed me of the opportunity. All right,
Speaker 1: So these are the facts we learned math, how to read.
Speaker 1: We even learn about the birds and the bees. But
Speaker 1: no one teaches us how to love. But now are
Speaker 1: very very dear friend and wisdom spreader Ja Shetty hopes
Speaker 1: to change all of that. Ja Shetty, whose mission of
Speaker 1: making wisdom go viral has taken the world by storm.
Speaker 1: This former monk is now a number one best selling author,
Speaker 1: hosts the number one health podcast, and as a social
Speaker 1: media following of more than fifty million welcome storyteller. His
Speaker 1: powerful message uses modern science and ancient wisdom. J has
Speaker 1: become a trusted advisor to countless people, including many celebrities
Speaker 1: like Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, and John Legend. Now he's
Speaker 1: revealing his highly anticipated Eight Rules of Love in his
Speaker 1: brand new book, Sure to Become a go to guide.
Speaker 1: I'm loving this book. Let me tell you about this book.
Speaker 1: You had me at hello from the first paragraph the
Speaker 1: difference between life and love. I started to realize that
Speaker 1: there were so many different ways of breaking down love.
Speaker 1: And I was having so many conversations with so many
Speaker 1: different people where they felt incomplete because they didn't have love.
Speaker 1: The lack of love seemed to be the greatest pain
Speaker 1: point in everyone I was talking to. I don't feel love,
Speaker 1: I don't have love. I don't know how to love.
Speaker 1: You can find people in all stages of life, no
Speaker 1: matter whether they were winning or losing or whatever, love
Speaker 1: was the core thing that was causing them pain. So
Speaker 1: I was like, how can we not write about the
Speaker 1: thing that we spend our whole life searching for? So
Speaker 1: I want to start with the ashrams. You have four
Speaker 1: of them? Can you break that down? Yes, definitely, so
Speaker 1: that four ushrooms are the four stages of love. So
Speaker 1: you said ashraoms, and I always thought in Ashraom was
Speaker 1: the place that you go to kind of just like
Speaker 1: meditate and no God. So you don't have to limit
Speaker 1: the definition and ushram to a physical space. It could
Speaker 1: be an emotional space. It can be a spiritual space
Speaker 1: that can be created without four walls, almost like going
Speaker 1: to church. Correct, you don't have to be in the
Speaker 1: church building exactly right. So the four ushrooms are preparing
Speaker 1: for love, practicing love, protecting love, and perfecting love. And
Speaker 1: these are the four stages we all go through. We
Speaker 1: start life single. You don't start life as a couple
Speaker 1: with someone else. You start out single, and that's your
Speaker 1: chance to prepare for love. But most of us speed
Speaker 1: that part up. We don't want to prepare. We just
Speaker 1: want to get into a relationship. Then when we get
Speaker 1: into a relationship, which is the second stage, we don't
Speaker 1: think that we need to learn anything. We expect the
Speaker 1: other person to already know how to love us, and
Speaker 1: we expect we should already know how to love them,
Speaker 1: and we don't. We don't practice. We just think we
Speaker 1: already made it. Yes, And then the third step is
Speaker 1: protecting love. This is such an interesting one. It took
Speaker 1: me the longest to uncover this one. And I realized
Speaker 1: that that third stage was ning to protect yourself from
Speaker 1: the wounds that come from trying to love and failing.
Speaker 1: And so by that stage, we all start believing love
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. Love is not for me. I'm not worthy
Speaker 1: of love. Love failed me. But love is real. We
Speaker 1: just experienced something that wasn't love. And the final is perfecting,
Speaker 1: which is probably my favorite thing to talk about. It's
Speaker 1: this idea that we've put romantic love on a pedestal,
Speaker 1: and I think, again, I really believe you've put romantic
Speaker 1: love on a pedestal. We've created a hierarchy that says
Speaker 1: loving a romantic partner is the epitome of love, and
Speaker 1: that I know so many people who have a beautiful
Speaker 1: relationship with their children, but they feel incomplete because they
Speaker 1: don't have that with a partner. And so I want
Speaker 1: to encourage people to realize that let's look at love
Speaker 1: more broadly, more expansively, and more truthfully. So, Jay, let's
Speaker 1: break down your concepts of you know, these four us rams.
Speaker 1: The first one was preparing for love. So give us
Speaker 1: a couple of principles around how we can prepare for love.
Speaker 1: So we've made loneliness or being alone the enemy. So
Speaker 1: if you have a birthday party and not many people
Speaker 1: come over, your unpopular. If you turn up to a
Speaker 1: wedding and you don't have a plus one, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh poor you? Are you okay? Like there must be
Speaker 1: something wrong with you. And so we've made people feel
Speaker 1: that being alone is of lower value than when you're
Speaker 1: with someone. And Paul Tillick talks about how there's two
Speaker 1: words in the English Dictionary that describe being alone, and
Speaker 1: we only use the word loneliness. The other one is solitude,
Speaker 1: and he says, loneliness is the feeling of pain when
Speaker 1: you're alone, and solitude is the strength of being alone.
Speaker 1: It's the super the power of being alone. And so
Speaker 1: when we're preparing for love, we constantly believe that we
Speaker 1: will only be special, worthy, attractive when someone sees it
Speaker 1: in us. And actually the rule is saying, you've got
Speaker 1: to first see it in yourself. You've got to first
Speaker 1: build it in yourself, and being alone gives you the
Speaker 1: time the space to actually do that. When you start
Speaker 1: being with someone romantically, you're now outsourcing the ability to
Speaker 1: love yourself. Right. It's funny because I was just talking
Speaker 1: to my girlfriend. She's going through a breakup, and um,
Speaker 1: she hasn't really spent time alone, and I told her,
Speaker 1: taken this time for you. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: build your understanding of how to protect that which you
Speaker 1: find worthy about yourself and understanding what that is. I said,
Speaker 1: if you are constantly afraid of being by yourself, that
Speaker 1: kind of desperation, that secret language unconsciously that sits in
Speaker 1: your head that says I'm not valuable unless I have
Speaker 1: a partner, I said, well, then that's the one that
Speaker 1: that weakens your boundary making. That's the one that doesn't
Speaker 1: make you capable of self love. And so then you're
Speaker 1: just going to continue the cycle. But j is so
Speaker 1: difficult for people to understand. I think that idea of
Speaker 1: self love has been so that kind of overuse new
Speaker 1: age terms that people don't really understand what that is.
Speaker 1: So you're basically saying that solitude gives a person an
Speaker 1: opportunity to know themselves even once they get into a relationship.
Speaker 1: Like I am just turned sixty nine. I still struggle
Speaker 1: a little bit with doing activities by myself. Like not
Speaker 1: too long ago, Rodney and I went on vacation. He
Speaker 1: had to leave before I did. It was just one
Speaker 1: extra day that I insisted on staying. But that meant
Speaker 1: that I had to be there by myself. I had
Speaker 1: to eat my meals alone, and I was perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: I did it, and I would look how old I
Speaker 1: am just getting that's fine. Let me tell you something, Jay,
Speaker 1: That's a gem right there. That one is so important
Speaker 1: when you can sit in your solitude and deal with you,
Speaker 1: look at yourself, heal yourself, embrace yourself, and have to
Speaker 1: learn how to comfort yourself. You know how to learn
Speaker 1: how to be your best friend, how to learn how
Speaker 1: to be your confidante, versus thinking that your partner is
Speaker 1: supposed to be your therapist, your lover, your best friend,
Speaker 1: your daddy, your business partner. And I think that that
Speaker 1: preparation for love is so important in order to step
Speaker 1: into a relationship with more reasonable ideas and expectations of
Speaker 1: what that relationship is supposed to be. So what are
Speaker 1: some of the principles within the second ash ram we're
Speaker 1: talking about practicing lest Yes, this one's probably the most
Speaker 1: complex because I feel like we usually rushed the first one.
Speaker 1: So the actions are almost like levels in a game.
Speaker 1: If you try and skip level one and you can
Speaker 1: cheat your way to level two, life will keep putting
Speaker 1: you back to level one. So that's why, no matter
Speaker 1: how old we get, or how many relationships we've had,
Speaker 1: or how many times we've been married or divorced or
Speaker 1: broken up, life is still asking us to learn those
Speaker 1: game game points before we move forward. In the second one,
Speaker 1: you're now moving from dealing with one mind to dealing
Speaker 1: with two minds. Some of my favorite principles from this rule.
Speaker 1: One of them is people deeply understanding the roles they
Speaker 1: played in their last relationship. And we all play one
Speaker 1: of three roles in a relationship. We've either been fixes,
Speaker 1: we've been dependents, or we've been supporters. What have you
Speaker 1: been our three and exactly? You'll find that most of
Speaker 1: us have repeated a role again and again and again.
Speaker 1: So the fixer is I'm going to solve this person.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a project. I'm looking for someone to
Speaker 1: sort and I get self value and self worth out
Speaker 1: of making something out of you. Dependent, Yes, and then
Speaker 1: the dependent is someone who actually goes I want a parent,
Speaker 1: I want to I just want shelter. You make me
Speaker 1: feel safe, you make me feel taken care of. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you the key to my happiness and life.
Speaker 1: That's the dependent and the support to is the healthiest
Speaker 1: out of the three, where it's like, well we're gonna
Speaker 1: support each other, but we remember we're still our own people.
Speaker 1: And so what most people do is when they get
Speaker 1: with someone, they are trying to force their version of
Speaker 1: home with someone else, rather than saying, I want to
Speaker 1: build a home together with bricks I picked from mine
Speaker 1: and bricks you picked from yours. Talk to us a
Speaker 1: little bit about karma. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: think that karma means every action as a reaction. What
Speaker 1: goes around comes around. There's partly truth in that, but
Speaker 1: that's a very simplistic, surface level view of karma. Karma
Speaker 1: is based cycle that forms, an habit that repeats itself.
Speaker 1: So it's a cycle of I have an idea that
Speaker 1: if I am dependent on someone, they will make me happy.
Speaker 1: Now I find someone who I can be dependent on,
Speaker 1: and I let them do everything in my life and
Speaker 1: I get them to take care of everything. Guess what happens.
Speaker 1: You still feel unfulfilled, and then you're being asked by karma.
Speaker 1: Did I walk into that with the right motive? So
Speaker 1: karma is getting us to check ourselves. It's asking you
Speaker 1: to say, am I happy with why I did that
Speaker 1: in the first place. We actually have a question for you,
Speaker 1: j from Sydney, Australia, Luma, who has a question about
Speaker 1: this very thing. Hi, Jada, Willow, Gammy and ja I
Speaker 1: posted a three months of going through Heartbreak video documenting
Speaker 1: the experience of going through the worst breakup of my life.
Speaker 1: I keep wishing that he'll text me or call me
Speaker 1: and tell me that he misses me. I don't know
Speaker 1: if anyone will ever love me. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's my fault. Every single part of me wants to
Speaker 1: call him right now. I just felt like it's wrong
Speaker 1: with me, like why how could this person just leave?
Speaker 1: One thing I do still struggle with is the fear
Speaker 1: of history repeating itself and never really fully trusting that
Speaker 1: you know, someone might just stay and not leave me
Speaker 1: like that, And I'm not going to go through this
Speaker 1: kind of heartbreak again. So I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: guys for some advice on this. Hi, Hi, thank you
Speaker 1: for being so vulnerable with us. One of the things
Speaker 1: that stuck out for me when she said she never
Speaker 1: wants to go through that kind of heartbreak again, I
Speaker 1: can just say I feel you. But let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about how realistic that is. Yes, studies showed that the
Speaker 1: activity in the brain that gets triggered when you go
Speaker 1: through a breakup is the same as detoxing from cocaine.
Speaker 1: So you can actually have a craving for that person
Speaker 1: that feels like that same sort of craving, and the
Speaker 1: other active atreas in the brain are the same as
Speaker 1: physical pain. So when you feel like your heart breaks,
Speaker 1: that idea is very scientifically shown. I think the challenges
Speaker 1: when you break up with someone, all of our language
Speaker 1: is about getting over them, as opposed to understanding why
Speaker 1: we got there. And so when you start saying I
Speaker 1: want to get over them, all the energy goes on
Speaker 1: to that person and now it becomes about them. But
Speaker 1: if you focus on how you got there, you may
Speaker 1: find that you fell in love too far. You may
Speaker 1: find that you didn't follow some of these stages that
Speaker 1: we're talking about of did I know who I was?
Speaker 1: Did I really know who they were? And you go,
Speaker 1: We'll wait a minute. Maybe I don't want a fast love.
Speaker 1: Maybe I want a slow, thoughtful, mindful love. And that's
Speaker 1: how you avoid the same thing happening again. So when
Speaker 1: you look at karma, it requires you to go backwards
Speaker 1: and go where did I kid myself that we had
Speaker 1: found love? I think we jumped from like to love
Speaker 1: and we missed this level called learning. And that's where
Speaker 1: I feel like we're going wrong. So I would encourage
Speaker 1: you to go back and say where did I rush things?
Speaker 1: Where did I really overtrust? Where did I give someone
Speaker 1: my trust rather than let them earn it? And how
Speaker 1: does she learn to trust again? I want to take
Speaker 1: a second of breakdown trust because I think that's such
Speaker 1: an overused word. And so there are four stages to trust,
Speaker 1: trusting any one. And so you have to understand that
Speaker 1: when you meet someone, no matter how impressive they are,
Speaker 1: no matter how well spoken they are, no matter how
Speaker 1: attractive you think they are, you start at zero trust.
Speaker 1: The problem is, when we see someone we find attractive,
Speaker 1: studies show we find them more trustworthy. If we find
Speaker 1: someone more intellectual and thoughtful, we find them more attractive.
Speaker 1: Therefore we find them more trustworthy. So we constantly trick
Speaker 1: ourselves into trusting people who haven't yet earned our trust.
Speaker 1: So whoever you meet, no matter who in the world
Speaker 1: is you have to start at zero trust. Then the
Speaker 1: next step is called transactional trust. Transactional trust is when
Speaker 1: I do something for them, they do something for me.
Speaker 1: If they say they're going to show up at three
Speaker 1: pm and they show up at three pm, great, I
Speaker 1: have transactional trust with them. The reason why we don't
Speaker 1: like this is because we want love to be magical.
Speaker 1: We want to love to like. We don't want stages jay,
Speaker 1: I just want I just want to feel love. And
Speaker 1: that's where we make the mistake because we don't want
Speaker 1: to say, oh, okay, I now can trust them transactionally.
Speaker 1: So the third stage is resist, a brocal trust where
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if you love this person, you'll
Speaker 1: do something for them. You're not doing it to get
Speaker 1: anything back, and they'll do something back for you anyway,
Speaker 1: right right. And then the fourth stage is unconditional trust,
Speaker 1: which is so rare and practically doesn't exist completely. And
Speaker 1: we usually start there when we think we're in love
Speaker 1: with someone. We're like, I'm giving you my unconditional trust.
Speaker 1: And now the higher trust you give, the bigger you
Speaker 1: have to fall. And so if you gave someone number
Speaker 1: four unconditional trust, then now you're falling back to zero trust.
Speaker 1: You've fallen down four steps, right, Luma, does that help you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: went to number four? Were fully trusted him? And yeah,
Speaker 1: Like obviously, going through break up is really hard. I
Speaker 1: honestly think the hardest part is when you realize that
Speaker 1: them coming back is no longer the solution for your pain,
Speaker 1: like they Yes, that is for that's fantastic, that's beautiful. Well, Luma,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Take this time
Speaker 1: for yourself. Yes, don't worry about jumping into anything else
Speaker 1: right now. We're wishing you the best. You were talking
Speaker 1: about unconditional trust. What are your real thoughts about unconditional love?
Speaker 1: Because I'm not sure there's such a thing. It's so
Speaker 1: rare that it feels like there is no such thing.
Speaker 1: But I think we get glimpses in it when you
Speaker 1: look at the love a mother has for their child.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever seen unconditional romantic love in
Speaker 1: my life. If you look at the greatest acts of
Speaker 1: love in the world, they were not romantic. Romeo and
Speaker 1: Julia is not a true story, and it wasn't a
Speaker 1: huge act of love in that sense. So I think
Speaker 1: the challenges. We've romanticized love and put romantic love on
Speaker 1: the pedestal, missing out on all these beaut that are
Speaker 1: as fulfilling, if not more, but we see them as
Speaker 1: less that And I think that that's unhealthy because some
Speaker 1: people may end up without a partner, maybe through natural loss.
Speaker 1: Someone may end up through a partner because they went
Speaker 1: through a divorce or breakup, and they may be single.
Speaker 1: Momays tell my girlfriends, let's just move in together when
Speaker 1: we're old and get a bunch of cats. Never we
Speaker 1: do have, but if we do have boyfriends, great, they
Speaker 1: can come over sometimes we can see them whatever, but
Speaker 1: let's be together and not like, oh, we have to
Speaker 1: just be old and gray with our significant other. Give
Speaker 1: us your thoughts on how saying I love you impacts relationships.
Speaker 1: So some people say I love you and it means
Speaker 1: they want to spend their life with you, and some
Speaker 1: people say I love you and it means I want
Speaker 1: to spend a night with you. But the problem is
Speaker 1: when someone says I love you, you you don't stop to
Speaker 1: asking go wait, wait, wait, what do you mean? What
Speaker 1: do you mean right? Studies show that men say I
Speaker 1: love you on average in a t eight days a
Speaker 1: t eight days and women take one thirty four days
Speaker 1: on average. Men say quicker, but it doesn't last is long.
Speaker 1: And the reason I bring that up is because it's
Speaker 1: not that that person necessarily lied to you or misled you.
Speaker 1: They were just living up to their definition. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you to stop someone from saying I
Speaker 1: love you. I'm saying I hope that before you say that.
Speaker 1: There have been some conversations around what does love mean
Speaker 1: to you? Is I really love spending time with you,
Speaker 1: and that's aware that I love you means I really
Speaker 1: love spending time with you, not I want to spend
Speaker 1: time with you for the rest of my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know what, that is really important because not
Speaker 1: only do people have a misunderstanding around the world I
Speaker 1: love you. But what does marriage mean to you? I
Speaker 1: tell people all the time, just because somebody's cute and
Speaker 1: they're great in bed, and you're gonna have cute kids,
Speaker 1: it is not necessarily the reason to get married. I
Speaker 1: don't think that there's enough conversation around marriage. And the
Speaker 1: cost of weddings are going up, yes, and the amount
Speaker 1: of time being married is going to so we spend
Speaker 1: so much time planning for a wedding, You get a
Speaker 1: wedding planner, you have a guest list, you put a
Speaker 1: budget aside. What do we do for our marriage? We
Speaker 1: don't think about a budget for our marriage, like we
Speaker 1: plan so much for one day when you've just promised
Speaker 1: to live one life with someone. And you know what's
Speaker 1: really interesting when kids are growing up. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ever did this with with Willow and Jaden
Speaker 1: and Trade. We put them up against the wall and
Speaker 1: then you mark where they are, and then at one
Speaker 1: one time, you just stop measuring. When you stop measuring,
Speaker 1: I mean you forget you're growing now. And that's what
Speaker 1: we kind of do. We think our wedding day is
Speaker 1: where you start measuring. You draw that line and you
Speaker 1: never have to draw a higher line ever went down.
Speaker 1: And so the mindset want to give people with love
Speaker 1: is that love ends because patients ends, kindness ends, compassion ends,
Speaker 1: judgment starts, criticism starts. Right. Love doesn't end because it
Speaker 1: just withered away. It ended because you stop practicing qualities
Speaker 1: that built it in the first place. A plan and
Speaker 1: your I was just doesn't die because it felt like dying.
Speaker 1: It died because you stopped watering it. It's that simple,
Speaker 1: it really is. Yeah. And so let's talk about the
Speaker 1: third ash root protecting love. Yes. Well, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite principles that I found really helped me and my
Speaker 1: wife in our own relationship is something I call fight styles, right, like,
Speaker 1: is your partner and then they or they wrestling, they
Speaker 1: are the king. When I read that part of the book,
Speaker 1: it was so eye opening from me, right because Rodney
Speaker 1: says I fight to win. Yes, I fight to win
Speaker 1: instead of fighting too like to solve the problems, I
Speaker 1: gonna let him break it down. But it was so
Speaker 1: revealing from me. I was like, wow, Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: found that there were three fight styles. Yeah. One is venting,
Speaker 1: where we're like, let's talk it out, let's figure it out.
Speaker 1: And I want to just vent. I want to express
Speaker 1: how I feel and we've got to figure it out.
Speaker 1: But it's very much trying to force a solution. The
Speaker 1: next is hiding, where someone just goes, I need to
Speaker 1: be in my cave. I don't want to see you.
Speaker 1: I just need to take some time out. And the
Speaker 1: third is exploding, where it becomes like it's all your fault,
Speaker 1: it's blaming, it's it's kind of critical and I discovered
Speaker 1: this actually through me and my wife. So I'm a
Speaker 1: classic inventor. I want to talk it out and figure
Speaker 1: it out right now. I'm not gonna explode, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna blame anyone, but I want to figure it out
Speaker 1: right now, and we have to talk about it. Rather,
Speaker 1: he's a hider. She just wants to think about it.
Speaker 1: She doesn't want to talk about it right now. She
Speaker 1: needs time and space. When we first started dating and
Speaker 1: started arguing, which is normal, and that's the other issue.
Speaker 1: Whenever anyone tells me we never argue, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's a healthy sign of a relationship. It's natural to
Speaker 1: have disagreements. Gotten An institute did a study that showed
Speaker 1: that the number one skill in a long lasting relationship
Speaker 1: was learning how to fight. When you're playing sports, you
Speaker 1: don't hope the other team doesn't attack. No, you think,
Speaker 1: all right, well when they attack this way, this is
Speaker 1: how we're going to respond. You want to do that
Speaker 1: as a couple. So when I would vent and Rady
Speaker 1: would hide, I would think she doesn't love me, not
Speaker 1: realizing she was just speaking a different language. So I
Speaker 1: started to realize, Okay, when we argue, I may want
Speaker 1: to talk about it now, and she may want to
Speaker 1: talk about it tomorrow, but we might have to schedule
Speaker 1: it to be in six hours to be in the
Speaker 1: middle of what that means rather than forcing her to
Speaker 1: fight on my battlefield or getting me to fight on hers.
Speaker 1: And so to me, learning fight styles protects love because
Speaker 1: you stop doubting love, and you stopped doubting your partner
Speaker 1: realizing they're just wired differently. When you were saying that
Speaker 1: you fight to win, here here are the scenarios and
Speaker 1: how fights go. If I win, it means you lose,
Speaker 1: which means we both lose because we're on a team.
Speaker 1: And really, what you want to do is you want
Speaker 1: to put your energy into soul being the problem together,
Speaker 1: not trying to fight with each other. And so we're
Speaker 1: making the person the enemy when the actual issue is
Speaker 1: the problem that we're dealing right. Gerald and Sheryl are
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles, Jay, and they have a question for
Speaker 1: you about fighting styles. What's up, Brad Table talk? Fam.
Speaker 1: I'm Gerald and I'm Cheryl and we've been dating for
Speaker 1: ten years and we moved in together and recently got engaged.
Speaker 1: We've realized over the years that we definitely have two
Speaker 1: different ways of communicating and arguing. When we disagree, we
Speaker 1: kind of both shut down and say it's fine or
Speaker 1: it's nothing, when a lot of the time it really isn't.
Speaker 1: And you know, eventually we want to grow together and
Speaker 1: start a family, but we don't want our small problems
Speaker 1: to turn into big ones. So what's your advice? Hi? Hi?
Speaker 1: It sounded like you both have a similar fight style
Speaker 1: and that you both like the clothes off but pretend
Speaker 1: nothing's really there. Am I right? Is that is that accurate?
Speaker 1: I kind of identified a lot with the I'm a
Speaker 1: venor but I'm a hider at the same time, And
Speaker 1: I think we both want to get to the root
Speaker 1: of a lot of the problems and come to a solution.
Speaker 1: But a lot of time, like I don't want to
Speaker 1: hurt each other's feelings, will end up hiding and kind
Speaker 1: of just brushing it off, And so you don't want
Speaker 1: to rock the boat too much, right? I feel like
Speaker 1: for me, I always kind of want to be right,
Speaker 1: and I know like if he's going to disagree with that,
Speaker 1: then I'd rather shut down and just not talk about it.
Speaker 1: The challenge becomes it's it's a five two egos rather
Speaker 1: than two people on the same team approach every issue,
Speaker 1: approach every problem is if you are trying to solve
Speaker 1: it together as a team. And so when it when
Speaker 1: it comes to whatever the issue may be, there's a
Speaker 1: few things that help us argue better. You really have
Speaker 1: to get to the root of the problem, because often
Speaker 1: you're arguing about something really tiny, which isn't the real issue.
Speaker 1: You're pretending to argue about the fact that you haven't
Speaker 1: made the call to get the oven fixed, and that
Speaker 1: isn't really the issue, and so much time is wasted
Speaker 1: on you left your socks out. You don't do this
Speaker 1: on the weekend, and that's not it. You're just overall
Speaker 1: not feeling like someone's in it with you. And so
Speaker 1: figure out for you personally, what is it that I'm
Speaker 1: really trying to work with right that's step one. Step
Speaker 1: two is we have to change our language. If our
Speaker 1: language is about being right, that means the other person
Speaker 1: is wrong. That's not an inspiring place to change from.
Speaker 1: Like you're meant to be partners, we have to use
Speaker 1: us and we, not you and me, because it really
Speaker 1: builds a collaborative environment in what your seems to be
Speaker 1: a healthy relationship and the third step, set a time
Speaker 1: to figure out how you're going to argue before you argue,
Speaker 1: Set a place to argue. Most people just wait for
Speaker 1: their partner to walk through the door at night. Bang,
Speaker 1: that's their place and time of argue never works, by
Speaker 1: the way, in a million years. Set a time when
Speaker 1: you know that person can digest it. And then the
Speaker 1: final step, which really blew my mind. If you're sitting
Speaker 1: opposite each other on a table, which is like a
Speaker 1: square or rectangle that actually mentally puts you against each other.
Speaker 1: They said that when people were having conversations where they're
Speaker 1: walking in the same direction, they were able to find
Speaker 1: better solutions. So next time we argue, going to walk,
Speaker 1: walk side by side, sit side by side and have
Speaker 1: a conversation, sit at a round table, which engages dialogue
Speaker 1: of equality. And now it's not about this way or
Speaker 1: that way, it's about us and we again. So I
Speaker 1: hope those principles give you some practical steps and how
Speaker 1: to actually argue. Probably well, I hope that was helpful
Speaker 1: to you guys. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you. These are things I've learned in my own relationship.
Speaker 1: We take one thing up, partner does and we scale
Speaker 1: it across everything. So I have a value that came
Speaker 1: from my mom, which is if you're not early, you're late.
Speaker 1: So to me, being on time is really important. I've
Speaker 1: married someone who is rarely on time, right, and I'm
Speaker 1: ending about her now, Michelle, here we go and and
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because for years I literally felt like
Speaker 1: my wife didn't care or value me because she wasn't
Speaker 1: on time. So not only am I judging her off
Speaker 1: of just one metric you're not on time, that means
Speaker 1: you don't love me, but I realized I would ruin
Speaker 1: our night. I would be just so angry with her
Speaker 1: internally that she was late again, and I stopped myself
Speaker 1: from having a great night with her, not realizing that
Speaker 1: the qualities I love about my wife that she's spontaneous,
Speaker 1: She's got this like vibrancy. And I realized that part
Speaker 1: of being spontaneous and vibrant means you don't manage time
Speaker 1: as well. And so I realized that actually, if I
Speaker 1: wanted my wife to be more like me, I would
Speaker 1: be stripping her of the best qualities that I love
Speaker 1: about her and say, with me, she never complains that
Speaker 1: I always have to be on time. So I think
Speaker 1: recognizing that sometimes the things you don't like about your
Speaker 1: partner or because of the things you love about them. Well,
Speaker 1: our next couple is going through a difficult breakup and
Speaker 1: has a question. So Josh and I have been together
Speaker 1: for five years. We have three children together. We're content
Speaker 1: creators that share our life pretty openly on social media
Speaker 1: to our hundreds of thousands of subscribers. So, needless to say,
Speaker 1: everyone was pretty shocked when we had broken up recently.
Speaker 1: And when Josh and I argue, it's an explosion. I
Speaker 1: am extremely emotional and sometimes I have to walk away
Speaker 1: because my emotions get too high. I like to face
Speaker 1: the situation head on and try my best to come
Speaker 1: to a resolution. But I think we have come to
Speaker 1: a point where our fighting has caused irreparable damage to
Speaker 1: our relationships. So we're struggling with the breakup. We love
Speaker 1: each other very much, but I think we both know
Speaker 1: that staying together isn't the answer. So I guess our
Speaker 1: question is how do we go about consciously uncoupling? That's real? Yeah,
Speaker 1: hi guys, Hi, Sorry, I watched the video again and
Speaker 1: I started crying. I know it's okay, I mean this
Speaker 1: is very commendable. This is my best friend. What do
Speaker 1: you mean? That's beautiful. It's really special to see you
Speaker 1: both supporting each other through this. It's a really mature
Speaker 1: way of trying to make this better for you both
Speaker 1: in the future. We want to do that, especially because
Speaker 1: we have three children. We've been listening the whole time,
Speaker 1: and all I've been thinking was where you guys a
Speaker 1: month ago? Right? You know you? You you guys are
Speaker 1: amazing and it's learned a lot already. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, And I really appreciate you bringing out
Speaker 1: that term conscious uncoupling because it puts you in a
Speaker 1: great position of strength for your kids. The biggest thing
Speaker 1: is setting boundaries of what you physically and emotionally can
Speaker 1: and can't do with each other anymore, because now you're
Speaker 1: separating yourselves. And the biggest mistake we make is in separating.
Speaker 1: We either try and cut everything or we keep things
Speaker 1: too blurry. Right, So we either say like this is
Speaker 1: the end of everything, We're never gonna talk to each
Speaker 1: other again, We're never gonna call each other ever again,
Speaker 1: or the other is we'll just see how it goes
Speaker 1: and we'll figure it out. And then that becomes really
Speaker 1: unhealthy because feelings and emotions creep back. So I would
Speaker 1: love for you both to look at the areas of
Speaker 1: your life where you still go across the physical, emotional, financial,
Speaker 1: i'm guessing as well, and spiritual and sit down and
Speaker 1: genuinely communicate your personal boundaries. So do this separately, don't
Speaker 1: do this together. And you're right down, this is where
Speaker 1: I'm a financially, this is where I'm not mentally, this
Speaker 1: is where I'm at emotionally, And then you're going to
Speaker 1: come back and share those same points with each other
Speaker 1: from the same areas and give each other that space
Speaker 1: to hear where that person's boundary is and make a
Speaker 1: commitment to respect that boundary because you said it yourself,
Speaker 1: You're like, we're best friends exactly, and if we're best
Speaker 1: friends with someone that we want to respect their boundaries
Speaker 1: and have them respect ours and remember boundaries on to
Speaker 1: keep someone else out there to make sure you don't
Speaker 1: cross that boundary too. I promise you if you do that,
Speaker 1: with the love you have, you can consciously on couple
Speaker 1: and do this in a respectful, admirable way that you
Speaker 1: both be proud of and your kids will be proud
Speaker 1: of We accept your challenge. I love that attitude. It
Speaker 1: is a challenge. It's not easy, but you've already done
Speaker 1: the hardest past. Thank you so much for that. I
Speaker 1: wishing the two of you the best. Yeah. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I get the sense that they're not done. Yeah I
Speaker 1: got that too, and that's okay too. But I've also
Speaker 1: seen people who consciously on couple and are the best
Speaker 1: of friends are better in that form. So it's all
Speaker 1: about just finding the form that works for you. So
Speaker 1: we have USh from for this is perfective, This is
Speaker 1: perfect affecting love. Yes, And the reason why I put
Speaker 1: perfecting not perfect is because it's an ongoing PROTOCEPST, you're
Speaker 1: always perfecting it. We've been trained to believe that love
Speaker 1: is something that people give you, it is something that
Speaker 1: you receive. It's something that we should want from other people.
Speaker 1: But when someone chooses to give love and to share
Speaker 1: love with everyone they need, they experienced the greatest form
Speaker 1: of love at any given time. And that's what this
Speaker 1: rule is really about, is that why could we not
Speaker 1: share love and express love with everyone, from the person
Speaker 1: who opens up the door at the store to someone
Speaker 1: who's serving us at the cash desk to the person
Speaker 1: that we bumped into on the train or the bus, Like,
Speaker 1: why couldn't every interaction be an expression of love? And
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you're going to give them your whole life.
Speaker 1: You could express pure love to someone just through a
Speaker 1: smile of just looking through them in the eye. At
Speaker 1: I have to say that I have experience just last
Speaker 1: weekend and my girlfriend UM said that I was very critical.
Speaker 1: I had said a snide remark about somebody I think
Speaker 1: and Um, she said, you're so critical, And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I let that sit in my head for a minute,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, critical, judgmental. I know that
Speaker 1: that's a character defect of mine, to be judgmental. And
Speaker 1: I thought that I was working on that and I
Speaker 1: actually thought I was being funny, but she did not
Speaker 1: take it that way. And so I'm replacing the word
Speaker 1: love with just kindness. Yeah. I just keep telling myself,
Speaker 1: can you just be kind And that's a great word
Speaker 1: because sometimes love can be a lot and then when
Speaker 1: you practice kindness, you get exchanges of love exactly. That
Speaker 1: such a beautiful point. And so the mindset want to
Speaker 1: give people with love is that love is a daily
Speaker 1: practice and daily, well slip me. Thank you all the
Speaker 1: spiritual teaching and the friendship that you have developed with them.
Speaker 1: They are passing that on. Thank you. You've just been
Speaker 1: such a great friend to us. So you know, thank you,
Speaker 1: I know you do. We love actual special family, special people.
Speaker 1: We love you so much. Jay's new book, Eight Rules
Speaker 1: of Love is available for preorder. Now do yourself a favor,
Speaker 1: get this book. Thank you. It might just change. Willow
Speaker 1: has told me so much. And of course it has
Speaker 1: been like watching Willow on her Jenny and and now
Speaker 1: Jennie is just inspiring to me. I'm trying. You know
Speaker 1: that you have my heart. Willow just such an inspiration
Speaker 1: in so many ways. You know, I couldn't give that
Speaker 1: right back to you were just mirroring. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you. To join the Red Table to Talk family
Speaker 1: and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at
Speaker 1: facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch,
Speaker 1: Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.