Speaker 1: So what do we do in that situation? When you're
Speaker 1: feeling lusty? It is natural. It is a desire for
Speaker 1: sexual gratification. That's what it is. And to see as
Speaker 1: that clearly and not change the language to someone else
Speaker 1: or to ourselves. Now, if you're in a relationship and
Speaker 1: you're experiencing this for someone else, what do you do
Speaker 1: in that situation? You have to realize it can be
Speaker 1: common and that every time you feel it, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you need to act on it. At the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want to suppress it, So what do you
Speaker 1: do about it? Hey? Everyone, welcome back to un Purpose,
Speaker 1: the number one health podcast in the world, helping you
Speaker 1: become happier, healthier and more healed. How many of you
Speaker 1: know that that's what you're looking for in your life.
Speaker 1: You're looking for health, happiness, and healing. You're in exactly
Speaker 1: the right place. And I want to thank you all
Speaker 1: because it has been phenomenal to see the number of
Speaker 1: downloads is growing month upon month upon month. I know
Speaker 1: so many of you are recommending the podcast to your friends.
Speaker 1: I see hundreds of thousands of you sharing it in
Speaker 1: your stories every week, and it's been truly heart touching
Speaker 1: for me because when I started this three and a
Speaker 1: half years ago, I had no idea where it was
Speaker 1: going to go. And whether you started listening three episodes ago,
Speaker 1: three months ago, or three years ago, you have been
Speaker 1: a huge part of making mental health mainstream, about making
Speaker 1: these conversations and these topics be a part of everyday
Speaker 1: life so that we can positively improve and impact the
Speaker 1: lives of other people. And so thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being a part of that. It means the world
Speaker 1: to me. I can't wait because my new books out
Speaker 1: next year, thirty fist of January, Eight Rules of Love.
Speaker 1: If you haven't ordered it already, you can grab it
Speaker 1: at eight Rules of Love dot com. And I'll become
Speaker 1: on tour as well, So if you preorder it, you'll
Speaker 1: get access to my tour dates as soon as they're announced.
Speaker 1: And today's topic is about love and relationships. I think
Speaker 1: I've been recording a lot on this theme for the
Speaker 1: last year because it's been front and center for me,
Speaker 1: my clients, and my community. And it's amazing because it's
Speaker 1: an area of our life that can bring us the
Speaker 1: greatest joy or cause us the greatest pain. And I
Speaker 1: think we often think about how relationships impact our heart.
Speaker 1: We think about the emotions of love and joy and
Speaker 1: fulfillment as heart based feelings. We talk about having our
Speaker 1: heart broken or our heart one. We talk about how
Speaker 1: something feels in our chest. We talk about our hearts
Speaker 1: skipping a beat or losing our breath when someone takes
Speaker 1: your breath away. It's all related to that area of
Speaker 1: our lives. We also often unconsciously talk about our gut,
Speaker 1: like I feel nervous, I feel butterflies right, These are
Speaker 1: all gut based feelings in relationships. Or we say I
Speaker 1: know he's not right from me, I feel it in
Speaker 1: my gut, or what does your gut say? And so
Speaker 1: a lot of our language, a lot of our vocabulary,
Speaker 1: a lot of our thoughts around love and relationships are
Speaker 1: based around the heart and the gut. And we often
Speaker 1: say things like, well, make sure you're head screwed on straight,
Speaker 1: you know, does that make sense in your head? Take
Speaker 1: your head with your heart. But we often don't realize
Speaker 1: that love, relationships and the aspects included in it actually
Speaker 1: affect the brain. The brain is interacting with these different emotions,
Speaker 1: different feelings, different ideas, and the brain is impacted and
Speaker 1: shows chemical changes, chemical balances, imbalances, and I think that
Speaker 1: for all of us to understand love deeper in our lives,
Speaker 1: for us to understand what we're really experiencing. Like how
Speaker 1: many times have you ever felt like someone loves you
Speaker 1: only to realize they weren't in love with you? Right,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've had that experience, or you have a
Speaker 1: friend that's had that experience, or how many of you
Speaker 1: have ever had the experience where you feel you love
Speaker 1: someone but then you realize you didn't really love them,
Speaker 1: it was something else. And loves this big word that
Speaker 1: gets thrown around, talked about, overpopularized, oversubscribed to, only for
Speaker 1: us to not know what it actually means. Studies show
Speaker 1: that men often think about expressing feelings of love first,
Speaker 1: and on average, it takes them ninety seven point three
Speaker 1: days to consider saying I love you, while women take
Speaker 1: around one hundred and thirty eight days to say it.
Speaker 1: And men consider confessions of love acceptable after about a month,
Speaker 1: whereas women think about it after two to three months.
Speaker 1: So we realize that a lot of us are quite
Speaker 1: good at falling in love too fast. And that's why
Speaker 1: I like looking at the brain's perspective because if I
Speaker 1: ask you why did you feel? What were you going through?
Speaker 1: How did you know? It can be quite subjective, but
Speaker 1: the way these different feelings of love show up in
Speaker 1: the brain are actually really interesting. So there are three
Speaker 1: ways love shows up in the brain, or feelings of
Speaker 1: love show up in the brain, and they are lost, attraction,
Speaker 1: and attachment. Now, I think we can all relate to these, right,
Speaker 1: we've all experienced lost, or at least we know what
Speaker 1: that looks like and what that feels like, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk a bit about that in a moment. The second
Speaker 1: is a track, it's a deeper sense of lust, it's
Speaker 1: maybe a longer sense of lust, it's a time frame
Speaker 1: that changes that conversation. And the third is attachment. So
Speaker 1: when we're experiencing lust, testosterone and estrogen are the most
Speaker 1: active chemicals. With attraction, it's dopamine, nora pernepherin, and serotonin,
Speaker 1: and for attachment it's oxytocin and vasopressin. So we realize
Speaker 1: that what we group together or often lump together as love, infatuation, attraction,
Speaker 1: or maybe you are good at knowing the difference. I
Speaker 1: think it's very hard to know the difference in the moment,
Speaker 1: And I'm taking this from a Harvard Business School RESET study.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, Fisher led a RESETS team
Speaker 1: that published a groundbreaking study that included the first functional
Speaker 1: MRI fMRI images of the brains of individuals who are
Speaker 1: experiencing romantic love. They looked at about two thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred brain scans, and what they did is that they
Speaker 1: showed them pictures of acquaintances, and they showed them pictures
Speaker 1: of people they were romantically involved in, and they wanted
Speaker 1: to see what happened. And they found that when people
Speaker 1: were shown pictures of people they were romantically involved in,
Speaker 1: the brains became more active in regions rich with dopamine,
Speaker 1: the so called feel good neurotransmitter. And what they found
Speaker 1: is when we're falling in love, there were a few
Speaker 1: things that happened. Our physical body reacts. We have racing hearts,
Speaker 1: sweaty palms, flush cheeks, feelings of passion, and even anxiety
Speaker 1: and levels of the stress hormone cortisol increases during the
Speaker 1: initial phase of romantic love, and it almost makes your
Speaker 1: body feel like it has to cope with a state
Speaker 1: of crisis. If you've ever felt like when I need
Speaker 1: to message them, When are they going to message me?
Speaker 1: When am I going to see them? What am I
Speaker 1: going to wear? It's almost like a heightened sense of
Speaker 1: stress that we're experiencing in pressure, and we see that
Speaker 1: stress and pressure as excitement, and we may also see
Speaker 1: it as stressful. It's interesting, isn't it, because we may
Speaker 1: also experience that with different things in our life when
Speaker 1: we're about to do something exciting, when we're about to
Speaker 1: do something big, but we often see it as negative. Now,
Speaker 1: what happens is as the quarters old levels rise, Schwartz
Speaker 1: says that the serotonin becomes depleted, and those low levels
Speaker 1: of serotonin is what sparks. What Schwartz says are the intrusive,
Speaker 1: maddeningly preoccupying thoughts, hopes, terrors of early love, like the
Speaker 1: infatuation that's gained with that. Why is this important to us?
Speaker 1: It's important because we need to know the difference between
Speaker 1: last attraction and attachment, stress, anxiety, overwhelm, burnout. What do
Speaker 1: all of these have in common? A lack of perceived
Speaker 1: control over your time, thoughts, and tasks. But what if
Speaker 1: I told you fixing all of these problems is as
Speaker 1: simple as fixing your mindset towards them. I know not
Speaker 1: simple at all. Everyone's busy, everyone's stress, but we could
Speaker 1: all use more calm in our lives, and learning to
Speaker 1: stay grounded and grateful is truly a daily practice. That's
Speaker 1: why I've partnered with Calm dot com to bring you
Speaker 1: the Daily J. If you've ever wanted to meditate with
Speaker 1: me and take back control over your busy mind, join
Speaker 1: me on the car map for the Daily J, a
Speaker 1: daily guided meditation where I'll help you find calm in
Speaker 1: the chaos, plant beautiful intentions for a happy, abundant life,
Speaker 1: and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer
Speaker 1: to the life of your dreams. Meditate with me by
Speaker 1: going to Calm dot com forward slash J to get
Speaker 1: forty percent off a Calm Premium membership that's own forty
Speaker 1: two dollars for the whole year for daily guided meditations.
Speaker 1: Experience the Daily jy only on Calm Now. Lust, as
Speaker 1: I talked about before, stimulates the production of sex hormones
Speaker 1: testosterone and estrogen from the testes and ovaries, and we
Speaker 1: often mistake that for love or deeper attraction, but the
Speaker 1: brain science shows that it's actually different. Now for anyone
Speaker 1: who's experienced lust before. I mean, lust is what makes
Speaker 1: us cheat. Lust is what makes us sometimes do regrettable things.
Speaker 1: Lust is also what makes us love bomb, makes us
Speaker 1: make someone feel like we are deeply into them, and
Speaker 1: then the next day forget about them. And so lust
Speaker 1: decision making is often unhealthy. And I find that we've
Speaker 1: created a society where lust is somewhat glorified. Lust is
Speaker 1: seen as you know, some people see last obviously religiously
Speaker 1: as a negative thing. But we think of that spark,
Speaker 1: and we think of that stress, and we think of
Speaker 1: that pressure as all positive. And while it can be
Speaker 1: a sign or an indicator or a signal in the
Speaker 1: right direction, it is not a sign of love. And
Speaker 1: I think when you're on the receiving end of that,
Speaker 1: when you're on the receiving end of someone obsessing about
Speaker 1: you and being really into you, it can be a
Speaker 1: really captivating feeling, like it can be really intoxicating as
Speaker 1: a feeling when someone's lusting after you. But it's important
Speaker 1: for you to realize that that's not the stabilizer of
Speaker 1: a relationship. That's not what makes a relationship sustainable. It's
Speaker 1: not what makes a good quality relationship last, and so
Speaker 1: it's just something to think about. Now, if you're someone
Speaker 1: who feels like you get attracted to a lust after
Speaker 1: someone every single week, every single month, and maybe you're
Speaker 1: in a committed relationship. I want to get to an
Speaker 1: uncomfortable conversation here about how so many people who are
Speaker 1: in committed, loving relationships can still experience lust for someone else.
Speaker 1: And when they do, usually they do two things. They
Speaker 1: act on it or they suppress it. And in that moment,
Speaker 1: the acting on it, of course, makes you feel guilty,
Speaker 1: It makes you feel shameful, makes you feel regret, and
Speaker 1: maybe you even do it in secret, so you're scared
Speaker 1: of being found out and we see that happen, or
Speaker 1: someone suppresses it, they pretend it doesn't exist, they act
Speaker 1: like it's not real. They don't tell their partner about it,
Speaker 1: or don't talk about it openly because they're scared of
Speaker 1: feeling judged. And that suppression usually leads to something insurmountable
Speaker 1: in the future when it all erupts. So what do
Speaker 1: we do in that situation when you're feeling lusty, when
Speaker 1: you're going through that triggered response, how do you want
Speaker 1: it to that? I think the first thing we have
Speaker 1: to realize is that it is natural. It is a
Speaker 1: desire for sexual gratification. That's what it is. And to
Speaker 1: see as that clearly and not change the language to
Speaker 1: someone else or to ourselves, to not kid ourselves that
Speaker 1: it's something deeper or more meaningful, and to convey that
Speaker 1: to someone else, because we may end up misleading them
Speaker 1: as well. I think that's a really healthy way of
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Now, if you're in a relationship and
Speaker 1: you're experiencing this for someone else, what do you do
Speaker 1: in that situation? I think one of the first things
Speaker 1: is you have to realize that it can be common
Speaker 1: and that every time you feel it, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you need to act on it. At the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want to suppress it, So what do you
Speaker 1: do about it? Well, one of the things you need
Speaker 1: to do is come up with an internal dialogue to
Speaker 1: coach yourself through it. You have to think about what's
Speaker 1: really special about what you have. You have to think
Speaker 1: about what's important about what you've built. You've got to
Speaker 1: reconnect with that feeling you probably had about the person
Speaker 1: you're with right now and it naturally wore off. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing, So what changed is that the stress
Speaker 1: hormone actually decreased as time went on. So in the
Speaker 1: beginning you're experiencing the high stress. As you get to
Speaker 1: know someone, your stress decreases because being with them reduces
Speaker 1: your stress. Now, sometimes we see that as a sign
Speaker 1: of the sparks gone. We see that as a sign
Speaker 1: of we've lost what we had. No, you haven't. You've
Speaker 1: actually gained something. Their company makes you feel calm. That
Speaker 1: company makes you feel peaceful. That relationship is giving you
Speaker 1: the benefits of a deeper relationship. But we got so
Speaker 1: used to identifying that stress of what do I wear
Speaker 1: around them? How do I feel about them? Do we
Speaker 1: get along? Where should we go? What should we do?
Speaker 1: We saw that as love, when actually it was just
Speaker 1: lust that was going to evolve if we allowed it to.
Speaker 1: So where do we go from here? We're experiencing last
Speaker 1: attraction attachment. When we talk about attraction, high levels of
Speaker 1: dopamine and a related hormone, neuropephrin, are released during a action.
Speaker 1: These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, and euphoric, even leading
Speaker 1: to decreased appetite and insomnia, which means you can actually
Speaker 1: be so in love that you can't eat and sleep.
Speaker 1: You notice how these physical descriptions of love actually come
Speaker 1: from what is chemically happening. And so when people are
Speaker 1: going through this, often we're like, oh, yeah, you're just attracted.
Speaker 1: You're just infatuated, which is true, but it is a
Speaker 1: chemical reaction. And when we know this in and of ourselves,
Speaker 1: we can learn to say, okay, well I should eat,
Speaker 1: I should sleep. I may feel like I can't, but
Speaker 1: I have to think about my health and well being
Speaker 1: during this time as well. And attraction seems to lead
Speaker 1: to a reduction in serotonin, or hormone that's known to
Speaker 1: be involved in appetite and mood. Interestingly, study show people
Speaker 1: who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder also have low levels
Speaker 1: of serotonin, leading scientists to speculate that this is what
Speaker 1: underlies the overpowering infatuation that characterizes the beginning stages of love. So,
Speaker 1: notice how the beginning stages of love are like this
Speaker 1: giddy and ergetic, euphoric. This then calms down as I
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, but then we want that feeling again.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a drug, right, There's almost an addictive
Speaker 1: nature to it, and a lot of the science shows
Speaker 1: that love is addictive, so some research goes on to
Speaker 1: suggest that falling in love is an obsession, and the
Speaker 1: research says that while you're wild about someone, your serotonin
Speaker 1: levels go down, which is the same trend typically found
Speaker 1: in people with obsessive compulsive disorder. It's also true that
Speaker 1: a brain in love is very similar to a brain
Speaker 1: in throes of addiction. Further, brain imaging studies show activity
Speaker 1: in the nuclear circumbents, a region of the brain that
Speaker 1: lights up when someone is addicted to a substance like
Speaker 1: cocaine or a behavior like gambling. Again, the love bombing
Speaker 1: aspect the aspect of someone being addicted to you and
Speaker 1: then being distant from you. The idea of feeling addicted
Speaker 1: to someone that you need to see them every day,
Speaker 1: that you want to see them everywhere day, that you
Speaker 1: want to be with them every day, And this is
Speaker 1: something we have to monitor. It's something we have to
Speaker 1: be aware of. It's something that we don't just let
Speaker 1: it take over again and again and again, because the
Speaker 1: idea that we're addicted to someone can be extremely painful
Speaker 1: when that someone is no longer around, no longer with us,
Speaker 1: no longer in our vicinity. Maybe out of reach. What
Speaker 1: I'm suggesting you do is understand the chemical imbalances that
Speaker 1: are going on here, because when we don't understand these,
Speaker 1: we think it's all real. And I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: not real. It is, but it's short lived, it's temporary,
Speaker 1: it's ephemeral. Last, but not least is attachment, which is
Speaker 1: the predominant factor in long term relationships. So while last
Speaker 1: and attraction are pretty much exclusive to romantic relationships, attachment
Speaker 1: mediates friendships, parent infant bonding, and many other intimacies as well.
Speaker 1: And the two primary hormones here appear to be oxytocin
Speaker 1: and vasopressin. So we start to notice that if you
Speaker 1: want a long term relationship with someone, it is natural
Speaker 1: for that initial feeling to subside. But that is a
Speaker 1: healthy thing. That is a healthy thing because the stress
Speaker 1: that comes from life is what is balanced out by
Speaker 1: the quality of our relationships. The challenges that come with
Speaker 1: navigating our workplace, the challenges that come with navigating things
Speaker 1: in our home environment, ideally our partner and our friends,
Speaker 1: and our long term relationships act as almost like a
Speaker 1: cushion to catch us like a net. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about this because I find that a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, our partner has the pressure to provide
Speaker 1: everything we need. Right, we put a lot of pressures
Speaker 1: on our partners to provide all of our needs. They
Speaker 1: need to be interesting as well as exciting. They need
Speaker 1: to be knowledgeable as well as silly. They need to
Speaker 1: be there for us as well as independent. They need
Speaker 1: to be confident as well as be vulnerable. We want
Speaker 1: them to be everything. We want them to be into sports,
Speaker 1: but we want them to be in touch with their emotions. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying these things are mutually exclusive. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that these things are opposites. But I'm saying that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of demands on a singular person.
Speaker 1: And that's why we find that we jump from romantic
Speaker 1: relationship to another, to another to another. It's why we
Speaker 1: move from entanglement to entanglement to entanglement because we're constantly
Speaker 1: looking for that reduction in serotonin. We're constantly looking for
Speaker 1: that production of testosterone or estrogen, and we're constantly chasing
Speaker 1: that emotion because it's so addictive, and that's why we
Speaker 1: get bored in long term relationships. It's why we start
Speaker 1: feeling like the lover has gone away, when actually it
Speaker 1: potentially has deepened. So I hope this episode it's very
Speaker 1: different from our usual On Purpose episodes, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to give an attempt to explaining what's happening behind the
Speaker 1: scenes because I think it will change the way we
Speaker 1: approach love. It will change the way you look at
Speaker 1: your partner this week, because I'm hoping that listening to this,
Speaker 1: if you've been in a long term relationship for a while,
Speaker 1: you look at your partner and you'll try and notice
Speaker 1: the potential of the greatness that's there, the value that
Speaker 1: you've built. And if you're someone who's in a new relationship,
Speaker 1: you'll realize that we're not trying to make this feeling last.
Speaker 1: It will go away, but let's get excited of where
Speaker 1: we're going too. And if you're someone who's single who's
Speaker 1: going through these experiences, you start to realize that they're natural.
Speaker 1: You are going to feel infatuated, you are going to
Speaker 1: get attracted, but you want to temper that with a
Speaker 1: bit of balance and see how it grows. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining on Purpose today. I am
Speaker 1: loving all of the engagement, all of the interaction that
Speaker 1: we have I appreciate you so deeply and I cannot
Speaker 1: wait to see you for an next episode. I hope
Speaker 1: you're loving our solos and our guest episodes. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for believing in me, trusting me. Pass this
Speaker 1: on to our friend who needs to understand the science
Speaker 1: about what's happening in the brain with love and relationships,
Speaker 1: and I'll see you again next week or tomorrow if
Speaker 1: you're listening to so many other of our incredible, incredible
Speaker 1: archives of episodes. Thank you so much.