Speaker 1: You attract what you use to impress. If we are
Speaker 1: attracted to someone for their ambition, that's what we get
Speaker 1: a person whose priority is ambition. There's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: ambition until you realize that you want someone who has
Speaker 1: lots of time to share with you. Sometimes we feel
Speaker 1: like none of the options before us are people we
Speaker 1: want to date, and then we have to ask ourselves,
Speaker 1: why are these my options? Why are we attracting these people,
Speaker 1: and how can we attract the ones we want? Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast
Speaker 1: in the world. Thanks to each and every one of
Speaker 1: you that come back every week to become happier, healthier,
Speaker 1: and more healed. Now, today's episodes a special special episode
Speaker 1: because I'm giving you Chapter two, Rule two of my
Speaker 1: new book, Eight Rules of Love absolutely free. You're going
Speaker 1: to hear the audio right now for free, and I
Speaker 1: want you to go and grab a copy of the
Speaker 1: audiobook if you don't already have it from eight Rules
Speaker 1: of Love dot com. If you enjoy today, you're going
Speaker 1: to love the rest of the book. It's dedicated to
Speaker 1: helping you find love, keep love, and let it go.
Speaker 1: And today's chapter and rule is called don't ignore your karma.
Speaker 1: This episode is going to help you understand why you
Speaker 1: always date the wrong people, why we make mistakes and
Speaker 1: repeat patterns in relationships, and how we seem to end
Speaker 1: up with the same person with a different face, a
Speaker 1: different name, and a different body. But why is it
Speaker 1: that we keep going back? Why are we attracted to
Speaker 1: the same types of people? Have you ever felt that yourself?
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you about the five types of people
Speaker 1: that we all fall for as well. Maybe you heard
Speaker 1: me speak to Alex Cooper about this briefly on Call
Speaker 1: Her Daddy. This is the rule and the chapter that
Speaker 1: breaks it down for you. This is going to help
Speaker 1: a lot of friends who've gone through a breakup, who've
Speaker 1: been ruggling recently with love, or keep finding themselves in
Speaker 1: the same types of relationships. So makes you pass it
Speaker 1: on again. It's a special episode. You're getting Rule to
Speaker 1: chapter two of my new book, Absolutely Free, and if
Speaker 1: you enjoy it, go and grab a copy of the
Speaker 1: full audiobook in my voice at eight Rules of Love
Speaker 1: dot com. And I'd love to invite you to come
Speaker 1: and see me for my global tour Love Rules. Go
Speaker 1: to j shettytour dot com. To learn more information about tickets,
Speaker 1: VIP experiences, and more. I can't wait to see you
Speaker 1: this year. Rule two, don't ignore your karma, do not
Speaker 1: be led by others. Awaken your own mind, amass your
Speaker 1: own experience, and decide for yourself your own path Atharva Vader.
Speaker 1: When Johnny and Emmett met at an industry retreat, Emmett
Speaker 1: sensed an instant connection. It felt like the most natural
Speaker 1: thing in the world, he said. After a few dates,
Speaker 1: we were spending every weekend together. He told me he
Speaker 1: loved me. But after three months together, Johnny broke up
Speaker 1: with him. This is the third time someone has told
Speaker 1: me he can't give me what I want. But all
Speaker 1: I want is a serious relationship. I just have bad
Speaker 1: relationship karma. Emma told me he was right in a sense.
Speaker 1: But karma doesn't mean what Emma or most people think.
Speaker 1: Karma is the law of cause and effect. A reaction
Speaker 1: produces a reaction. In other words, your current decisions, good
Speaker 1: and bad, determine your future experience. People think karma means
Speaker 1: that if you do something bad, bad things will happen
Speaker 1: to you, like someone breaks up with you because you
Speaker 1: broke up with someone else. But that's not how it works.
Speaker 1: Karma is more about the mindset in which we make
Speaker 1: a decision. If we make a choice or take action
Speaker 1: with or without proper understanding, we receive a reaction based
Speaker 1: on that choice. If you hide that you're going to
Speaker 1: a party from your partner and then you run into
Speaker 1: their best friend at the party and that person tells
Speaker 1: your partner they saw you, and your partner is upset,
Speaker 1: that's karma in action. You made a choice and you
Speaker 1: have to live with the consequences of that choice. Punishment
Speaker 1: and reward are not karma's purpose. Rather, karme is trying
Speaker 1: to teach you, in this case, transparency and honesty. I
Speaker 1: don't want you to attribute every good or bad thing
Speaker 1: in your life or the world to karma. That's not productive.
Speaker 1: Karma is more useful as a tool than as an explanation.
Speaker 1: It enables you to use your past experiences to make
Speaker 1: the best choices now the karma cycle. Karma begins with
Speaker 1: an impression. From the time we are born. Choices are
Speaker 1: made for us. We're surrounded by information and experiences that
Speaker 1: shape us our environment, our parents, our friends, our schooling
Speaker 1: and religious instruction. We don't pick these influences, but we
Speaker 1: observe and absorb their messages. Some Scara is the Sanskrit
Speaker 1: word for impression, and when we are young we collect
Speaker 1: some scaras. The impressions that we carry from these experiences
Speaker 1: influence our thinking, behaviors, and responses. As an impression grows stronger,
Speaker 1: it starts to shape our decisions. If you grew up
Speaker 1: putting milk in your cereal bowl, then adding the cereal
Speaker 1: that becomes your norm, then move out and get a
Speaker 1: roommate who tells you you're doing it wrong, that it
Speaker 1: makes much more sense to put the cereal in before
Speaker 1: you add the milk. Now you have a choice. Will
Speaker 1: you stick with the impression that you absorbed as a child,
Speaker 1: or will you try a new way. As we get older,
Speaker 1: we gain the intelligence to curate our impressions by choosing
Speaker 1: what we watch and who we listen to. We also
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to revisit, edit, and unlearn past impressions.
Speaker 1: In youth, choices are made for you. These become impressions.
Speaker 1: As an adult, you use these impressions to make your
Speaker 1: own choices. Those choices generate and effect a consequence or
Speaker 1: a reaction. If you're happy with the consequence. You probably
Speaker 1: won't change your impression, but if you don't like the consequence,
Speaker 1: you can revisit the impression and decide whether it's steered wrong.
Speaker 1: If it did, you can break the cycle by forming
Speaker 1: a new impression, which then steers you to a new
Speaker 1: choice from which you get a new reaction. This is
Speaker 1: the cycle of karma. We are meant to learn from
Speaker 1: our karma, to use it to inform our decision making,
Speaker 1: but that isn't easy. Life is busy and we think
Speaker 1: that what we learned is just the way things are.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to love and cereal awesome scars
Speaker 1: can lead us astray karma and relationships. I had a
Speaker 1: client whose ex boyfriend left an impression on her. He
Speaker 1: was extremely ambitious, trying to get a foothold in a
Speaker 1: new career. She liked his drive, but was unhappy that
Speaker 1: he was never available. Then she met a man who
Speaker 1: was extremely attentive. At the end of their first date,
Speaker 1: he asked her out again, and from then on he
Speaker 1: couldn't have been more available, texting her, making plans, and
Speaker 1: checking in to see how her days were going. This
Speaker 1: was exactly what she'd been looking for. Within a few weeks,
Speaker 1: they started spending almost all their time together. But after
Speaker 1: a few months she realized what was really going on.
Speaker 1: He wasn't just attentive, he was obsessive. The attention he
Speaker 1: was giving her was based on insecurity, not love. He
Speaker 1: was possessive and scared that she would leave him. My
Speaker 1: client had made a choice based on an impression, but
Speaker 1: her focus was too narrow. Her karma taught her that
Speaker 1: her impression was too reactive. She didn't need or want
Speaker 1: to be someone's entire focus. She just wanted him to
Speaker 1: be present when he was with her. In the course
Speaker 1: of these two relationships, client used her karma to refine
Speaker 1: what she was looking for in a mate. The impressions
Speaker 1: we form in our youth tell us what love should
Speaker 1: look like and feel like. They suggest what's attractive and
Speaker 1: what's dorky, how we should treat others and be treated,
Speaker 1: what profession they should have, and who should pay for dinner.
Speaker 1: But if we don't understand how our impressions were formed
Speaker 1: and how we make choices, then we keep repeating the
Speaker 1: same karma. The same impressions lead to the same choices.
Speaker 1: We love others in response to the way we've been
Speaker 1: loved by others. But if we can put our impressions
Speaker 1: in context so we see and understand their origins, then
Speaker 1: we have the perspective and opportunity to form a new impression.
Speaker 1: For instance, if I understand that I guilt trip my
Speaker 1: partner because my mother guilt ripped me, then that recognition
Speaker 1: inspires me to break the cycle. Understanding our impressions is
Speaker 1: the first step to freeing ourselves from the some scaras
Speaker 1: planted by a childhood over which we had no control.
Speaker 1: The choices that we make based on our new impression
Speaker 1: are conscious. We can see if we like the results better.
Speaker 1: If our parents had a volatile, passionate relationship, we might
Speaker 1: form an impression that this is what love is supposed
Speaker 1: to look like. But if and sometimes we realize this
Speaker 1: when we're young, we are quite clear that we don't
Speaker 1: like the outcome of that volatility, then we create a
Speaker 1: new impression and decide that the love we seek is
Speaker 1: exactly not what our parents modeled. Then we might make
Speaker 1: it a priority to avoid drama. This new impression may
Speaker 1: create its own challenges. We may play to day, or
Speaker 1: we may be so focused on what we don't want
Speaker 1: that we forget to think about what we do want.
Speaker 1: But we have opened our minds and freed ourselves from
Speaker 1: our first samscara, and now we have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: create new impressions through trial and error. Karma is a
Speaker 1: mirror showing us where our choices have led us. We
Speaker 1: picked the wrong people and repeat mistakes in relationships because
Speaker 1: of the samskaras we bring with us from the past.
Speaker 1: Instead of unconsciously allowing the past to guide us, I
Speaker 1: want us to learn from our past to make decisions.
Speaker 1: We need to identify these smscaras in order to manage
Speaker 1: their influence. We do this for two reasons. First, when
Speaker 1: we learn from the past, we heal it, and second,
Speaker 1: this process helps us stop making the same mistakes. Unearthing
Speaker 1: are some scars. Our expectations and desires around relationships are
Speaker 1: shaped by our earliest experiences of love. Think about where
Speaker 1: you first absorbed ideas of what love should look and
Speaker 1: feel like. The strongest influences are most likely the love
Speaker 1: you witnessed between your parents or guardians, the love you
Speaker 1: did and didn't receive from them, the first romance movies
Speaker 1: you watched, and the first serious relationships you had. In
Speaker 1: our search for love, we subconsciously try to repeat or
Speaker 1: repair our past experiences. We imitate or reject, but we
Speaker 1: often give these early influences under you weight. They affect
Speaker 1: our choices for better and worse. They interfere with our
Speaker 1: judgment more than we realize. Let's begin with the visualization.
Speaker 1: We're trying to let go of who we are and
Speaker 1: to reconnect with a subconscious part of ourselves, and visualization
Speaker 1: is the best way I know to travel to another
Speaker 1: time and place. Try this younger self meditation. Try to
Speaker 1: unearth the impressions left by your past and understand how
Speaker 1: they're influencing your idea of love. This isn't about finding
Speaker 1: fault in others or putting them on a pedestal. It's
Speaker 1: simply about isolating the emotional patterns that influenced you in
Speaker 1: your early years. You can think of this meditation as
Speaker 1: an archeological dig. There are artifacts to be found, some
Speaker 1: buried treasures, some half exposed, some worthless. They showed the
Speaker 1: richness and damage of years past and have much to
Speaker 1: teach us about life. Tap into unresolved, unfulfilled desires by
Speaker 1: visiting yourself at age thirteen or fourteen, give your younger
Speaker 1: self all the words wisdom and hugs they need. Embrace
Speaker 1: your younger self. What did your younger self need to
Speaker 1: hear that? You were never told you're beautiful, you're courageous,
Speaker 1: believe in yourself, You'll be okay, you're not stupid. What
Speaker 1: would your younger self say in response? Thank you for
Speaker 1: coming back to tell me this. Don't be so stressed.
Speaker 1: You should take up singing again. After you have had
Speaker 1: this conversation with your younger self, give that version of
Speaker 1: you and embrace and thank them for this insight. When
Speaker 1: I guide people through this meditation, most of them find
Speaker 1: that they had some sort of insecurity in their youth,
Speaker 1: and that child is still within them, still struggling with
Speaker 1: that self doubt. However, one man told me after the
Speaker 1: meditation that his younger self looked at him and said,
Speaker 1: come on, man, get over it. Just pick yourself up
Speaker 1: and move on. It felt to me like his younger
Speaker 1: self was saying, tough it out. We're strong, we can
Speaker 1: handle anything. His ego was protecting his vulnerability, even if
Speaker 1: we feel there's nothing to heal. Sometimes the wounds are
Speaker 1: so deep we can't see them anymore. We take a
Speaker 1: stoic approach. We tell ourselves. We're fine, but we don't
Speaker 1: recognize that we must take stock cut two a year later,
Speaker 1: when this man messaged me out of the blue to say,
Speaker 1: I realize I need to become more compassionate with the
Speaker 1: people I love and myself. It's just not how I'm wired.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I have time to dwell on
Speaker 1: other people's thoughts and emotions. I answered, you don't take
Speaker 1: the time to dwell on your own emotions. It had
Speaker 1: taken him a year that he was finally ready the
Speaker 1: younger self. Meditation helps us identify the gifts and the
Speaker 1: gaps that have clung to us since childhood. But this
Speaker 1: is only the first step toward letting go of bad
Speaker 1: impressions and taking control of the choices we make in relationships.
Speaker 1: To go deeper, we'll examine three influences on our some scars,
Speaker 1: our parents, the media, and our first experiences of love
Speaker 1: parental gifts and gaps. In the New York Times, Modern
Speaker 1: Love column writer Coco Meller's describes falling for a neighbor
Speaker 1: who makes it clear to her that he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be in a relationship. She knows she is lying
Speaker 1: to him when she says she doesn't want anything serious either,
Speaker 1: and admits that though I didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 1: I was repeating a familiar pattern. I grew up chasing
Speaker 1: my father's love, a man who, like my neighbor, could
Speaker 1: be affectionate or absent, depending on the day. Martha Pita
Speaker 1: Guru devon is a sanscrit phrase much repeated in Hinduism.
Speaker 1: It means mother, father, teacher, God. Your mother is your
Speaker 1: first guru. She teaches you about love, She teaches you
Speaker 1: about care not through instruction, but through her interactions with you,
Speaker 1: and father is right there next to her. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's a basic Freudian principle that the early relationships we
Speaker 1: have with our parents and caregivers established relationship dynamics that,
Speaker 1: like Mellers, were compelled to replicate as adults. When we're young,
Speaker 1: we completely lie on our parents, and we figure out
Speaker 1: ways to attract their attention, to inspire their affection, and
Speaker 1: to feel their love. The love they give us shapes
Speaker 1: how we engage in love. Martha Peita Guru devm is
Speaker 1: a simple concept with far reaching implications. In their book
Speaker 1: A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, Fariamini and Richard
Speaker 1: Lannon who were all professors of psychiatry at the University
Speaker 1: of California, San Francisco. Right, we play out our unconscious
Speaker 1: knowledge in every unthinking move we make in the dance
Speaker 1: of loving. If a child has the right parents, he
Speaker 1: learns the right principles that love means protection, caretaking, loyalty, sacrifice.
Speaker 1: He comes to know it not because he's told, but
Speaker 1: because his brain ought tuomatically narrows crowded confusion into a
Speaker 1: few regular prototypes. If he has emotionally unhealthy parents, a
Speaker 1: child unwittingly memorizes the lesson of their troubled relationship. That
Speaker 1: love is suffocation, that anger is terrifying, that dependence is humiliating,
Speaker 1: or one of a million other crippling variations. But I
Speaker 1: believe that even the child with the right parents faces
Speaker 1: their own challenges when it comes to finding love. If
Speaker 1: a child grows up seeing love is protection, caretaking, loyalty,
Speaker 1: and sacrifice, that's what they identify as love. Unless our
Speaker 1: childhood experiences were traumatic, and often even if they were,
Speaker 1: we tend to view them as normal. Then, when we
Speaker 1: are loved by someone who shows it differently, for example,
Speaker 1: through joy, time and abundance, it may take us longer
Speaker 1: to notice and appreciate those qualities as genuine expressions of love.
Speaker 1: If your parents loved you, you might become a good
Speaker 1: and kind person, or you might hold those you meet
Speaker 1: to an impossible standard of love. Unless we do this
Speaker 1: work of examining our some scars, we're often unaware of
Speaker 1: these impressions. We just assume the way we think and
Speaker 1: feel is the reasonable response. In this way, the gifts
Speaker 1: our parents give us can create as many pitfalls as
Speaker 1: the gaps. If there is a gap in how our
Speaker 1: parents raised us, we look to others to fill it,
Speaker 1: And if there is a gift in how our parents
Speaker 1: raised us, we look to others to give us the same.
Speaker 1: My mother's love for me was a gift. It enabled
Speaker 1: me to give love to others, but my parents never
Speaker 1: went to my rug matches. Because of that gap, I
Speaker 1: first looked for validation from my peers. I wanted my
Speaker 1: friends at school to think I was strong and tough,
Speaker 1: because I was eager for some kind of support that
Speaker 1: I didn't get at home. By the time I became
Speaker 1: a monk, I still hadn't found a way to satisfy
Speaker 1: my longing for validation. But during my studies at the ushroom,
Speaker 1: I looked in the karma mirror and realized that even
Speaker 1: when I did get the validation I yearned for, I
Speaker 1: was never satisfied. Even when I received authentic, positive feedback
Speaker 1: from others, I was never satisfied. And I think this
Speaker 1: is often true that it's hard for others to truly
Speaker 1: understand what we go through to get a good result.
Speaker 1: We first seek validation from those closest to us. Then unsatis,
Speaker 1: we look for it from everyone, and finally we find
Speaker 1: it in ourselves. It was the gap that my parents
Speaker 1: created that eventually taught me this lesson. I had to
Speaker 1: be happy with myself. Parental gifts and gaps play out
Speaker 1: in various ways in our relationships. My parents always gave
Speaker 1: me gifts that made me feel special on my birthday,
Speaker 1: whereas Radi's Famili's gift to her was quality time. These
Speaker 1: are cherished aspects of each of our childhoods, But on
Speaker 1: my birthday, Radi might give me quality time when I'm
Speaker 1: expecting a gift. The more or where we are of
Speaker 1: our expectations and where they came from, the more we
Speaker 1: can communicate our needs and adapt to our partners. We
Speaker 1: all respond differently to the gifts and gaps we faced.
Speaker 1: If you saw your parents argue, you might grow up
Speaker 1: to be argumentative or defensive, or you might heal yourself
Speaker 1: from it and make a conscious effort not to treat
Speaker 1: others that way. Or you might help others work through
Speaker 1: their conflicts. If your parents create a volatile household, you
Speaker 1: might try to keep the peace at all times and
Speaker 1: hide your true feelings. Karma lets us choose how to respond,
Speaker 1: and the options can be subtle and varied. This isn't
Speaker 1: about being right or wrong. We're looking for where we
Speaker 1: have used our karma in ways that have benefited our relationships,
Speaker 1: and where we are still making unconscious choices. If your
Speaker 1: father was a jerk, you might date a bunch of
Speaker 1: jerks until you finally wise up and settle down with
Speaker 1: a nice guy. This is learning the lesson of karma.
Speaker 1: Many of us feel like we didn't get the right upbringing.
Speaker 1: This could be anything from not having our basic needs
Speaker 1: taken care of to not having opportunities that would have
Speaker 1: helped us get a better footing in life. Even if
Speaker 1: our parents believe in us, encourage our strengths, assure us
Speaker 1: that our disappointments aren't the end of the world and
Speaker 1: consistently scaffold our confidence in other ways. They can't hand
Speaker 1: us a perfectly developed psyche in a neatly wrapped package.
Speaker 1: And many parents themselves struggle with self confidence, self esteem,
Speaker 1: self improvement, self love, self care. It's hard for them
Speaker 1: to pass these qualities onto their kids when they have
Speaker 1: their own challenges. It might sound like we're doomed, but
Speaker 1: I promise you we're not. We're just focusing too much
Speaker 1: on what our parents should have done or wishing they'd
Speaker 1: behave differently, rather than figuring out what we ourselves can do.
Speaker 1: No matter how imperfect a situation we were born into,
Speaker 1: we can learn from our karma and use it to
Speaker 1: guide us into and through the relationship we want. Try this.
Speaker 1: Identify parental gifts and gaps memories. Write down three of
Speaker 1: your best memories from your childhood. Write down three of
Speaker 1: your worst memories from your childhood. Identify a challenging time
Speaker 1: in your childhood. Did your parents help you through it? How?
Speaker 1: How did it affect you? Your answers may not be
Speaker 1: black or white. A loving response might have soothed you,
Speaker 1: or it might have fostered a dependent relationship. A harsh
Speaker 1: response might have damaged your self esteem or built your resilience.
Speaker 1: What matters isn't whether your parents were the best parents
Speaker 1: in the world. It's a question of how their treatment
Speaker 1: of you played out in your development. Expectations. What expectations
Speaker 1: did your parents have of you? Did these expectations motivate you,
Speaker 1: put pressure on you? How do they affect your relationships?
Speaker 1: If your parents expected you to achieve a certain level
Speaker 1: of success or to be in a relationship with a
Speaker 1: certain kind of person, you might either be unnecessarily attached
Speaker 1: to that outcome or you may have reacted against it.
Speaker 1: How had those forces still at play in your life.
Speaker 1: I had a friend whose parents drilled it into her
Speaker 1: that she should marry someone ambitious. But her last boyfriend
Speaker 1: broke up with her because, as he put it, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be your business partner. I want to
Speaker 1: be your boyfriend. She had to let go of what
Speaker 1: her parents wanted for her and rethink her ideas of
Speaker 1: what a partners should be modeling. What elements of a
Speaker 1: relationship did your parents model that you liked disliked. So
Speaker 1: often in relationships we reject or repeat what our parents did.
Speaker 1: If they argued you may avoid conflict if they had
Speaker 1: a certain power dynamic. You may expect the same in
Speaker 1: your relationship or avoid it at all costs. Emotional support.
Speaker 1: What kind of love and emotional support do you wish
Speaker 1: your parents had given you? What did you miss out on?
Speaker 1: Once you become aware of a gift or gap that
Speaker 1: you're bringing to relationships, you can start to address it. One. Recognize.
Speaker 1: The first step is to recognize where and when that
Speaker 1: impression steers you wrong. Does it come up on social
Speaker 1: media with the particular group of people when you try
Speaker 1: to celebrate with your partner when you travel. Two remind yourself.
Speaker 1: The reminder is a note to yourself about how you
Speaker 1: want to be or don't want to be. Set a
Speaker 1: reminder that will catch you in the moment when you're
Speaker 1: at risk for acting in a way you'd rather not.
Speaker 1: Do you have a challenger head where you will expect
Speaker 1: a kind of support that your partner doesn't usually give.
Speaker 1: Are you jealous when you see your partner interacting in groups?
Speaker 1: Does a certain kind of behavior always trigger your anger
Speaker 1: before the moment happens. Find a way to remind yourself
Speaker 1: that you want to change in that moment, time and
Speaker 1: space it might be as simple as putting a post
Speaker 1: a note on your bathroom mirror, or writing a note
Speaker 1: to yourself in your journal, or asking your partner to
Speaker 1: remind you of what you're working on. Three repeat. Make
Speaker 1: your reminder into a mantra, a phrase that you repeat
Speaker 1: to yourself over and over. When you do this, it's
Speaker 1: more likely to come to your mind in the moment
Speaker 1: when you need it. It might be love is free
Speaker 1: of guilt, or anger is not the answer. Or ask
Speaker 1: before you assume. For reduce, before a reaction or expectation
Speaker 1: goes away, you'll find yourself indulging it less. Make your
Speaker 1: partner aware so they know that you're working on reducing it.
Speaker 1: Five Remove. Finally, over time, with attention and repetition, you'll
Speaker 1: break the habit of the expectation. Whether our parents neglected
Speaker 1: or fulfilled us in ways large and small. When we
Speaker 1: first leave the nest, we are hardwired to look outward
Speaker 1: to others for validation and satisfaction instead of inward toward ourselves.
Speaker 1: We gravitate towards partners who may fill our voids, but
Speaker 1: we may also fail to open our minds and hearts
Speaker 1: to people who might suit us better. Looking in The
Speaker 1: karma mirror helps us stop chasing others who might fulfill
Speaker 1: emotional needs from our childhoods and start fulfilling them ourselves.
Speaker 1: At the same time. The more you become aware of
Speaker 1: these influences in your own life, the more you'll be
Speaker 1: able to see how a partner's parents impact them. This
Speaker 1: gives you greater understanding and patience with yourself and your partner.
Speaker 1: Movie Magic, our parents aren't the only some scaras in
Speaker 1: our approach to love. From the time with children, movies, TV, music,
Speaker 1: and other media sell us a romanticized ideal of love.
Speaker 1: Snow White sings Someday my prince will come, and we
Speaker 1: are promised that the person of our dreams will show up,
Speaker 1: will quickly recognize them as our destiny, and they will
Speaker 1: sweep us off our feet and carry us into the sunset.
Speaker 1: In Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks as the titular character, walks
Speaker 1: onto a bus for his first day of school, and
Speaker 1: when Jenny invites him to sit next to her, he narrates,
Speaker 1: I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.
Speaker 1: She was like an angel. The love story takes off
Speaker 1: from there. Romances wants us to believe in love at
Speaker 1: first sight that In his book Face Value, professor Alexander
Speaker 1: Todorov shows that first impressions are likely to be wrong.
Speaker 1: We think that people who look happy are more trustworthy,
Speaker 1: and we think that people who look tired are less intelligent,
Speaker 1: though these impressions have no link to reality. We assign
Speaker 1: positive qualities to faces that we consider typical, and although
Speaker 1: there is no average human face, we like faces that
Speaker 1: are closer to our own definition of a typical face.
Speaker 1: In spite of the unreliability of first impressions, a group
Speaker 1: of psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania come through data
Speaker 1: from more than ten thousand people who had tried speed
Speaker 1: dating and found that most of them decided whether they
Speaker 1: were attracted to someone within just three seconds. Studies show
Speaker 1: that first impressions like this are easily influenced by factors
Speaker 1: we may not even register. In one study, psychologist from
Speaker 1: Yale University had participants briefly hold either a cup of
Speaker 1: warm or iced coffee. They were then given a packet
Speaker 1: containing information about a person they didn't know, and were
Speaker 1: asked to assess that person. The people who had held
Speaker 1: the warm coffee described the individuals they read about as
Speaker 1: substantially warmer in personality than those who had held the
Speaker 1: iced coffee, So the next time you arrange a first
Speaker 1: day you might want to take them for a nice
Speaker 1: hot coco instead of an ice cream Sunday. When it
Speaker 1: comes to meeting people, the context effect refers to how
Speaker 1: the atmosphere in which we encountered them can impact our
Speaker 1: impression of them. Think of running into someone in the
Speaker 1: lobby of a theater after you've just watched a romantic
Speaker 1: comedy you're cue to think of their potential as a
Speaker 1: love match more than if you ran into them after
Speaker 1: watching the documentary Slugs Nature's Little Scamps. Or imagine meeting
Speaker 1: someone at a wedding, which is like having just watched
Speaker 1: a hundred romantic comedies, You might be more likely to
Speaker 1: see that person as having marriage potential than if you
Speaker 1: met them at a bar. Cinematic images of love set
Speaker 1: the standard for how love should occur, and often they
Speaker 1: make us feel like we're not achieving the level of
Speaker 1: romance that we should. In five Hundred Days of Summer, Tom,
Speaker 1: who writes greeting cards, shows his boss a Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: card and says, if somebody gave me this card, mister
Speaker 1: Vance I would eat it. It's these cards and the
Speaker 1: movies and the pop songs there to blame for all
Speaker 1: the lies and the heartache everything. Hollywood is hardly the
Speaker 1: only culprit. The Bollywood movies that I watched as a
Speaker 1: child did a number on me. I dreamed of that
Speaker 1: romantic happily ever after that Bollywood always touted. You would
Speaker 1: think that I outgrew these notions when I served as
Speaker 1: a monk, But as I described in the introduction, when
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask Radi to marry me, my images
Speaker 1: of engagements came from this samskara, hence the river bank
Speaker 1: a cappella horse drawn extravaganza rather than I worked out,
Speaker 1: thank God. But her allergic reaction to the horse reminded
Speaker 1: me that I should think about the person in front
Speaker 1: of me instead of succumbing to the media influences surrounding me. Similarly,
Speaker 1: when I wanted to buy her an engagement ring, I
Speaker 1: asked a friend how to pick one. He told me
Speaker 1: to get the nicest ring I could, spending about two
Speaker 1: to three months salary on it, so I did. I
Speaker 1: didn't ask how he came up with that figure. If
Speaker 1: I had, he probably would have said Oh, it's what
Speaker 1: someone told me when I was getting engaged. Only years
Speaker 1: later did I find out that before World War Two,
Speaker 1: only ten percent of engagement rings were set with diamonds.
Speaker 1: Then the diamond industry contrived to make them the official
Speaker 1: jewel of marriage and love. Almost fifty years later. Having
Speaker 1: achieved that, they set out to define how much a
Speaker 1: man should spend on a ring. In nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: an ad for Debier's Jewelers showed the silhouettes of a
Speaker 1: couple on a beach. The shadow of a man slips
Speaker 1: a diamond ring on the shadow of the woman's finger,
Speaker 1: and the gold banded ring is the only color. In
Speaker 1: the ad, they kiss and the voice over the diamond
Speaker 1: engagement ring. How else could two months salary last forever?
Speaker 1: It was jewelers who told the world exactly how much
Speaker 1: a man should spend on an engagement ring. How's that
Speaker 1: for a conflict of interest? That ad was released before
Speaker 1: my friend was even born, and yet it influenced him,
Speaker 1: me and millions of others, spreading the belief that if
Speaker 1: you love someone, you should spend a big chunk of
Speaker 1: change on a diamond. There are fewer rom coms being
Speaker 1: produced these days. But when we examine our ideas of love,
Speaker 1: we have to look back to the ideas that were
Speaker 1: planted when we were young, before we were watching critically,
Speaker 1: before we had any experience against which to judge them.
Speaker 1: When Lily James played Cinderella in the twenty fifteen movie
Speaker 1: the Surovsky crystal studied glass slip didn't actually fit on
Speaker 1: her foot. No maiden in the land fits the shoe,
Speaker 1: she told The Washington Post. So the prince is going
Speaker 1: to die alone. The promise of a happily ever after
Speaker 1: turns out to be an obstacle to happily ever after.
Speaker 1: Try this media love. Think of the first time you
Speaker 1: heard a love song or saw a movie that shaped
Speaker 1: or changed how you feel about love. What characteristics of
Speaker 1: love did it present? Do you believe in them? Have
Speaker 1: you achieved them in your past relationships? You had me
Speaker 1: at Hello, Jerry Maguire, I wish I knew how to quit.
Speaker 1: You brokemack Mountain to me. You are perfect love. Actually
Speaker 1: as you wish the princess bride. You want the moon,
Speaker 1: just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around
Speaker 1: it and pull it down. It's a wonderful life. I'm
Speaker 1: also just a girl standing in front of a boy
Speaker 1: asking him to love her notting Hill. When we understand
Speaker 1: the some scars that media have planted about love stories,
Speaker 1: then we don't require Hollywood perfection in our own relationships.
Speaker 1: We're willing to try a love that starts slowly or
Speaker 1: plays out differently first loves. Our ideas of love are
Speaker 1: also shaped by our early romances. In twenty fifteen, the
Speaker 1: artist Rora Blue invited people to anonymously post messages to
Speaker 1: their first loves. Over a million people responded with notes
Speaker 1: like you ruined me, but I still write you love
Speaker 1: notes on paper plates and napkins, and You'll always be
Speaker 1: etched into my bones. And I loved losing myself in you,
Speaker 1: but it's been forever and I still can't find myself.
Speaker 1: And if I keep my eyes closed, he looks just
Speaker 1: like you. There's a biological reason first loves creates some scars.
Speaker 1: A key area of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, doesn't
Speaker 1: develop fully until we're about twenty five years old. As
Speaker 1: brain expert daniel Lehman describes it, the prefrontal cortex helps
Speaker 1: us to think before we speak and act, and to
Speaker 1: learn from our mistakes. Young people think with their feelings
Speaker 1: without a fully developed prefrontal cortex filter. Much of our
Speaker 1: mental life runs through our amygdala, a brain center associated
Speaker 1: with emotional processes like fear and anxiety. As we age,
Speaker 1: our passion is tempered by reason and self control, and
Speaker 1: we don't feel with the same wild abandon Those of
Speaker 1: us who felt the passion of young love may remember
Speaker 1: it as more intense than anything in adult life, even
Speaker 1: if it wasn't ideal or even healthy. The first time
Speaker 1: you enter a relationship out of pure infatuation, the person
Speaker 1: might break your heart. If you don't accept the lesson
Speaker 1: and enter your next relationship again out of infatuation, then
Speaker 1: the second time you might find yourself bored and acting
Speaker 1: out of character. The third time, the person might steal
Speaker 1: your money. Karmel will bring you the same lesson through
Speaker 1: a different person again and again until you change, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it will bring you the same lessons with your
Speaker 1: partner over and over again. THEYDICT teaching say that there
Speaker 1: are three levels of intelligence. In the first level, when
Speaker 1: someone tells you the fire will burn you, you listen
Speaker 1: and learn and never touch fire. In the second level,
Speaker 1: you experience it for yourself you touch fire, it burns you,
Speaker 1: and you learn not to touch fire again. In the
Speaker 1: third level, you keep burning yourself, but you never learn.
Speaker 1: If we don't heed our karma, we're stuck in the
Speaker 1: third level of intelligence and we bear the scars. We
Speaker 1: forget that what we experienced in the past holds information
Speaker 1: about how will feel if we do it again. Often
Speaker 1: when we believe that we have bad luck in relationships,
Speaker 1: the real problem is that we keep ignoring the data
Speaker 1: and refusing the karmic lesson. In other words, if you
Speaker 1: don't learn anything, you repeat the same mistake. Karma encourages
Speaker 1: you to reflect on the choice, the reason you made it,
Speaker 1: and what you should do differently next time. Let's look
Speaker 1: deeply at some of the types we date and what
Speaker 1: karmic lessons they have to offer. The rebel in the
Speaker 1: movie I Know what you did last summer, Julie says
Speaker 1: to Ray, I hate this, I really hate this. You're
Speaker 1: gonna go and you're gonna fall for some head shaven,
Speaker 1: black wearing, tattoo covered, body piercing philosophy student. Ray answers
Speaker 1: that sounds attractive. This character is found over and over
Speaker 1: again in literature and movies from Rochester and Jane Eyre
Speaker 1: and Heathcliff in Withering Heights to Edward in Twilight be
Speaker 1: Being attracted to someone who bucks the system isn't necessarily
Speaker 1: a mistake, But if you keep hoping adventure and mystery
Speaker 1: will give way to loyalty and responsibility, it's time to
Speaker 1: learn from your choices. Why are you attracted to this person?
Speaker 1: Are they offering you the relationship you want? If you're
Speaker 1: ready to move into a deeper commitment, then you'll need
Speaker 1: to choose someone based on the qualities they have to offer,
Speaker 1: instead of just their rebellious lure the chase. Sometimes we're
Speaker 1: drawn to someone who is emotionally even physically unavailable. They
Speaker 1: keep moving, but sometimes pause just long enough to keep
Speaker 1: us hoping. We are enchanted by them, so we convince
Speaker 1: ourselves that they will stop in their tracks and suddenly
Speaker 1: give us their time and attention. We're sure that once
Speaker 1: they finally focus on us, they'll fall in love with us,
Speaker 1: so we commit ourselves to tracking them down. Where are they,
Speaker 1: How are they spending their time when they could be
Speaker 1: with us? When will they call? How can we make
Speaker 1: ourselves visible and available without seeming desperate when we are
Speaker 1: caught up in the chase. We are not getting to
Speaker 1: know a person, discovering compatibilities, learning about each other, and
Speaker 1: growing together. All of our romantic energy is invested, but
Speaker 1: there is no return. In her book, Why Him, Why Her,
Speaker 1: anthropologist Helen Fisher, the chief scientific advisor frommatch dot com,
Speaker 1: explains that playing hard to get creates a phenomenon she
Speaker 1: calls frustration attraction. She writes, barriers intensified feelings of romantic love,
Speaker 1: probably because the brain pathways associated with pleasure, energy, focus,
Speaker 1: and motivation keep working when a reward is delayed. However,
Speaker 1: she adds that researchers have looked at the eventual result
Speaker 1: of playing hard to get and found no evidence that
Speaker 1: it helps establish a long term relationship. No matter which
Speaker 1: side of heart to get you're on, if you're not
Speaker 1: spending time together, you're not building a relationship. If you're
Speaker 1: drawn to the thrill of the chase, be aware of
Speaker 1: what you're choosing. If you start a relationship with a
Speaker 1: musician who is constantly on the road, then you can't
Speaker 1: expect them to give up their career and spend all
Speaker 1: their time with you. When someone is unavailable, they will
Speaker 1: generally stay that way. Are you drawn to them because
Speaker 1: you're looking for someone who is as busy as you are,
Speaker 1: or did you grow up with an unavailable parent so
Speaker 1: that is the only level of love you think you deserve.
Speaker 1: To use your karma, well, you must be conscious of
Speaker 1: who you're choosing, why, and whether they fit what you
Speaker 1: want in your life. As you began to explore in
Speaker 1: Rule one the project, sometimes a partner needs saving, you
Speaker 1: are compelled to take care of them, giving them attention, help,
Speaker 1: and stability. This may play to your nurturing side. In
Speaker 1: the short term, it makes you feel competent and in control.
Speaker 1: They need you, and you feel like you can help
Speaker 1: them live a better life. But in the long term,
Speaker 1: if they aren't transforming, you feel drained and resentful because
Speaker 1: you've become that person's caregiver. You're not equals and you're
Speaker 1: investing far more in the relationship than they are. Dominating
Speaker 1: a relationship bolsters our ego and makes us feel important.
Speaker 1: It doesn't require us to question ourselves or to follow
Speaker 1: our partner's suggestions, but ultimately it interferes with the long
Speaker 1: term connection we're trying to form. We're attracted to the
Speaker 1: dynamic rather than the person. If you love the role
Speaker 1: of guiding, leading, and giving advice. You can find that
Speaker 1: elsewhere in your life. Try this relationship roles. Here are
Speaker 1: some questions to help you examine what role you played
Speaker 1: in your most recent relationship or expect to have in
Speaker 1: a new relationship. Is it what you want? You'll play
Speaker 1: all the roles I describe, but you want to move
Speaker 1: toward being supporters of each other while consciously allowing for
Speaker 1: moments of being fixes and dependent. Type one fixer? Did
Speaker 1: you find yourself constantly trying to solve, nurture, help, or
Speaker 1: make the other person better? Were you trying to carry them,
Speaker 1: trying to make their goals happen for them? Type two dependent?
Speaker 1: Did you feel like you relied on your partner too much?
Speaker 1: Did you go to them with all your issues and
Speaker 1: expect them to find solutions? Type three supporter Did you
Speaker 1: like their personality, respect their values, and want to help
Speaker 1: them toward their goals? Did you respect how they spent
Speaker 1: their time and kept their space or did you always
Speaker 1: want them to change it? The fixer has a parental mentality.
Speaker 1: You feel that it's your responsibility to take care of
Speaker 1: the other person, nurture them. Their happiness is your priority.
Speaker 1: This mentality can be useful, but it can also go overboard.
Speaker 1: When you parent your partner, it makes them behave like
Speaker 1: a child. The dependent has a childlike mentality. You rely
Speaker 1: on your partner, You want them to figure it all out,
Speaker 1: and you get upset when they can't solve everything for you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we settle into this mentality when we have a
Speaker 1: domineering partner. It can feel comforting to have someone else
Speaker 1: take the lead, but we lose out when we don't
Speaker 1: follow our own path and shape our own lives. The
Speaker 1: supporter is their partner's champion. You are not a parent,
Speaker 1: you're not a child. You're side by side with your partner.
Speaker 1: You're trying to take responsibility. You're trying to develop patients.
Speaker 1: You're trying to help the other person grow, but you're
Speaker 1: not trying to micromanage. This is the Goldilock's just Right mentality.
Speaker 1: For a quiz to help figure out the relationship role
Speaker 1: that you play, please visit www dot relationship roles dot com.
Speaker 1: It's natural to move in and out of all three
Speaker 1: of these roles throughout our relationships. Sometimes we take the lead.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're more comfortable following what we're trying to avoid
Speaker 1: is dating a type with whom we're stuck in the
Speaker 1: same dynamic all the time. Being a full time fixer
Speaker 1: means your partner isn't taking their own journey. We don't
Speaker 1: have the right to take it for them. It's not
Speaker 1: our role to fix something that may not even be broken.
Speaker 1: Being fragile full time means you lack confidence and seek
Speaker 1: validation from others. You feel broken and want someone to
Speaker 1: fix you. Being with someone who supports this side of
Speaker 1: you interferes with you taking responsibility for your own growth, joy,
Speaker 1: and success. The supporter is an ideal to strive for.
Speaker 1: Both partners communicate as equals. Your partner is always teaching you,
Speaker 1: but you're always teaching them. And when you both understand
Speaker 1: that you're both teaching and learning at the same time,
Speaker 1: that's when you create a partnership. More on this in
Speaker 1: rule three the F boy or F girl. When we
Speaker 1: date someone who sleeps around, they are clearly communicating that
Speaker 1: they aren't interested in an exclusive commitment. If that's what
Speaker 1: you're looking for, consider whether it's worth staying in it
Speaker 1: for great sex. Sex can distract us from making good
Speaker 1: choices about who to be with and whether to stay
Speaker 1: with them, and one of the biggest causes of that
Speaker 1: distraction is the hormone oxytocin. According to neuroscientist and psychiatrist
Speaker 1: Daniel Aman, oxytocin is related to feelings of being in love,
Speaker 1: and the release of oxytocin can support and even accelerate
Speaker 1: bonding and trust. Generally, men have lower levels of oxytocin
Speaker 1: than women, but sex causes men's oxytocin levels to spike
Speaker 1: more than five hundred percent. New York University neuroscientist Robert
Speaker 1: Fromkey says that oxytocin acts like a volume dial, turning
Speaker 1: up and amplifying brain activity related to whatever someone is
Speaker 1: already experiencing. During and after sex, we feel more in love,
Speaker 1: but it's not actually love. We feel closer chemically even
Speaker 1: though we're not closer emotionally. Additionally, the hormone actually has
Speaker 1: a temporary blocking effect on negative memories, so all of
Speaker 1: those little things that were bothering you, or that argument
Speaker 1: you had beforehand, which might have been a major warning sign,
Speaker 1: could fade after sex. When I interviewed a husband and
Speaker 1: wife relationship experts John and Julie Gottman on my podcast,
Speaker 1: John said that oxytocin can be the hormone of bad judgment.
Speaker 1: He says, you keep thinking it's going to be okay
Speaker 1: because that hormone makes you feel safe and secure, and
Speaker 1: you don't see the red flags the person is sending,
Speaker 1: saying I'm not trustworthy. If someone makes it clear that
Speaker 1: they aren't interested in committing, they can still be a
Speaker 1: fun connection, but know that you aren't likely to learn
Speaker 1: much from them. The opulent one. The bugrat Geeta talks
Speaker 1: about six opulences knowledge, fame, money, beauty, strength, and renunciation.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're attracted to someone who has a single opulence,
Speaker 1: and this is enough to prematurely convince us we're in love.
Speaker 1: In Beyonce's song Halo, the light surrounding someone convinces her
Speaker 1: they're everything she needs and more. Yet, someone's halo isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily an accurate indicator of who they are. In psychology,
Speaker 1: the halo effect is a type of cognitive bias where
Speaker 1: we form an inaccurate impression of someone or something based
Speaker 1: on a single trait or characteristic. For instance, if someone
Speaker 1: is attractive, we're more likely to assign other positive attributes
Speaker 1: to them, like intelligence, wit, or kindness. This particular halo
Speaker 1: effect is called the attractiveness stereotype. One study showed that
Speaker 1: teachers graded attractive students more favorably when the class was
Speaker 1: in person, but not when the class was online and
Speaker 1: the teachers couldn't see their students. Other studies showed that
Speaker 1: servers deemed to be more attractive made higher tips. When
Speaker 1: we see a good looking person, we might make unconscious
Speaker 1: assumptions that they're wealthier, or more ambitious, or more likable,
Speaker 1: and so on, and this can influence our attraction to them.
Speaker 1: The bugard Ghitas says that the six opulences show us
Speaker 1: the fallibility of desire. We want attention, but a million
Speaker 1: likes won't make us feel loved. We want beauty, but
Speaker 1: we try to make youth, which is not the only
Speaker 1: kind of beauty last forever. We want money, but it
Speaker 1: won't buy happiness. Try googling lottery winners if you want
Speaker 1: proof of that. If we look for the opulences in
Speaker 1: a partner, we are being sold a temporary bill of goods.
Speaker 1: The bugard Ghetas says that divine love of God is
Speaker 1: to know their greatness, but gravitate toward their sweetness. You
Speaker 1: may know all of your partners accolades and achievements, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't define them as an individual. Being attracted to
Speaker 1: our partners for what they have or what they've achieved
Speaker 1: is not a bad place to start, but it's not
Speaker 1: a good place to end. Abilities and achievements don't matter
Speaker 1: so much as qualities and actions. We make the mistake
Speaker 1: of assigning qualities to people based on their abilities. We
Speaker 1: assume that a good communicator will be trustworthy. We think
Speaker 1: a writer must be thoughtful, a manager must be organized.
Speaker 1: The only way we can know what qualities a person
Speaker 1: truly has is by spending time with them and observing them.
Speaker 1: Only when we know someone intimately and deeply do we
Speaker 1: find the sweetness in them. Try this, reflect and learn
Speaker 1: from a past relationship. We tend to base successes in
Speaker 1: relationships on how long they last, but their actual value
Speaker 1: lies in how much we learn and grow from them.
Speaker 1: If we understand that, we can examine the choices we've made,
Speaker 1: assess why we picked a person, figure out what went wrong,
Speaker 1: and develop a better sense of whom to pick and
Speaker 1: whether we need to change anything for next time. One,
Speaker 1: What energy were you in when you chose to be
Speaker 1: with your X energy of ignorance. In this energy, you
Speaker 1: might have picked someone because you were bored, because there
Speaker 1: was nobody else around, or because you were lonely. Choices
Speaker 1: made in ignorance lead to depression, pain, and stress. Energy
Speaker 1: of passion. In this energy, you pick someone because you
Speaker 1: wanted one of the opulences. Decisions made in passion start well,
Speaker 1: but have to deepen into understanding and respect, or else
Speaker 1: they end terribly. Energy of goodness. In this energy, you
Speaker 1: chose someone with whom you felt connected and compatible. There
Speaker 1: was mutual respect, and often these relationships end with some
Speaker 1: feelings of respect still intact. Two why did it end?
Speaker 1: Be as honest with yourself as you can when you
Speaker 1: assess what went wrong in this relationship. Three learn from it?
Speaker 1: What can you think of that you will try to
Speaker 1: do differently next time? Can you enter your next relationship
Speaker 1: from an energy of goodness? Can you set aside opulences
Speaker 1: and look for qualities that make good partners? You attract
Speaker 1: what you use to impress. The lences highlight a very
Speaker 1: practical way of understanding karma. If we are attracted to
Speaker 1: someone for their ambition, that's what we get. A person
Speaker 1: whose priority is ambition. There's nothing wrong with ambition until
Speaker 1: you realize that you want someone who has lots of
Speaker 1: time to share with you. Sometimes we feel like none
Speaker 1: of the options before us are people we want to date,
Speaker 1: and then we have to ask ourselves, why are these
Speaker 1: my options? Why are we attracting these people, and how
Speaker 1: can we attract the ones we want again? Karma has
Speaker 1: the answer. If you put something into the world, you
Speaker 1: get it back. This is karma in its most basic form.
Speaker 1: If I use money to present myself as valuable, I'll
Speaker 1: attract someone who believes that money is what makes me valuable.
Speaker 1: When we present ourselves, we are signaling the dynamic we want,
Speaker 1: how we expect to be treated, what we think we deserve.
Speaker 1: I had one client who is a successful entrepreneur. He
Speaker 1: was upset because every woman he met only wanted him
Speaker 1: for his money. But every picture he posted in his
Speaker 1: online profile showed him in a supercar or him in
Speaker 1: front of another home he'd bought. He said, I'm not
Speaker 1: like that in person, but he shouldn't have been surprised
Speaker 1: that he was attracting a certain type of person. If
Speaker 1: you use wealth to impress someone, you are committing to
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to sustain your wealth. But one day
Speaker 1: you may want to change how you spend your time.
Speaker 1: You may want to feel that your partner values you
Speaker 1: for more than your net worth. If you use your
Speaker 1: body to impress someone, you're putting yourself in a position
Speaker 1: where aging is hard to accept. One day, your body
Speaker 1: will change and you may want a partner whose love
Speaker 1: will last for years. If you use your social status
Speaker 1: to impress someone, you may find that someone with a
Speaker 1: higher social status is more attractive to your partner, or
Speaker 1: something may change your status and you'll want a partner
Speaker 1: who can support you through a hard time. If you
Speaker 1: use your intellect to impress someone, you may find that
Speaker 1: you don't feel an emotional connection. If you use sex
Speaker 1: to impress someone, you are setting a standard for physical
Speaker 1: connection that may be hard for one or both of
Speaker 1: you to sustain if attraction fades. When we put ourselves
Speaker 1: out in the world, whether it's on a first date,
Speaker 1: social media, or a dating profile, we are saying this
Speaker 1: is the version of me that I want you to like.
Speaker 1: It's important to put out the version of yourself that
Speaker 1: you want someone to be attracted to, as opposed to
Speaker 1: the version of yourself that you think someone would be
Speaker 1: attracted to These are two different things. If you attract
Speaker 1: someone through a persona, then you're either going to have
Speaker 1: to fake being that promotable person forever or they're eventually
Speaker 1: going to discover the real you. One study showed that
Speaker 1: fifty three percent of online datas lied in their profiles,
Speaker 1: women more than men, and more often about looks, doing
Speaker 1: things like posting an old photo so they looked younger,
Speaker 1: and men more often about financial status. Considering that men
Speaker 1: tend to rank physical attractiveness as a highly valued characteristic
Speaker 1: in a potential partner and women tend to rank financial
Speaker 1: success similarly, you can see how that might play out,
Speaker 1: at least in heterosexual relationships. Even if your self positioning
Speaker 1: is more subtle and you're willing to play out the
Speaker 1: role you've invented indefinitely, you will always know in your
Speaker 1: heart that you aren't loved for who you really are.
Speaker 1: You've made them fall in love with the character that
Speaker 1: you created, not you. By pretending to be someone else,
Speaker 1: you will attract strife into your life. Save yourself that
Speaker 1: time and energy. It's natural to want to present the
Speaker 1: best version of yourself. You may be doing this through
Speaker 1: the opulences, whether by trying to slip where you went
Speaker 1: to college into conversation, or taking your date to an
Speaker 1: expensive restaurant to demonstrate wealth, or uploading your most seductive
Speaker 1: photos to a dating website. We can easily get caught
Speaker 1: up in judging ourselves by our net worth or the
Speaker 1: way we show it in material possessions, our friends or followers,
Speaker 1: our physical appear. But we all know people who have
Speaker 1: high value using these metrics and still have low self worth.
Speaker 1: There is a saying that the poor man begs outside
Speaker 1: the temple while the rich man begs inside it, or,
Speaker 1: as Russell Brand puts it, the more that I've detached
Speaker 1: myself from the things that I thought would make me happy,
Speaker 1: like money and fame and other people's opinions, the more
Speaker 1: truth is being revealed. We market ourselves to others using
Speaker 1: our opulences, but doing that won't benefit us in the
Speaker 1: long run. We want to show our real personality, values
Speaker 1: and goals so we are loved for what matters most
Speaker 1: to us. The converse is also true. Be aware if
Speaker 1: opulences are what attract you to your partner, and beware
Speaker 1: if they're all that attracts you. You don't want to
Speaker 1: end up with someone whom you're only attracted to physically,
Speaker 1: or whose social life captivates you, or whom you only
Speaker 1: connect with about work, or whose external success compels you.
Speaker 1: These qualities are tied to temporary situations and characteristics. They
Speaker 1: won't last, and when they are gone, so is the relationship.
Speaker 1: When I met Raddy, I had nothing. No, that's not true.
Speaker 1: What's true is that we've been together ever since. All
Speaker 1: I had to offer her was myself, and that seemed
Speaker 1: to be enough. Try this what you showcase. When there's
Speaker 1: a disparity between what attracts your partner and what you
Speaker 1: love about yourself, you may struggle to live up to
Speaker 1: their vision. First, make a list of what you love
Speaker 1: about yourself. Think about the qualities you're most proud of,
Speaker 1: and try to steer clear of the opulences. Are you kind, caring,
Speaker 1: hard working, honest, creative, grateful, flexible, reliable. Now, for each
Speaker 1: of your long term or defining relationships, make a list
Speaker 1: of the qualities you think that person saw and appreciated
Speaker 1: in you. We want to build relationships where we are
Speaker 1: loved for what we love in ourselves. What you want
Speaker 1: from someone else, first give to yourself. Once we have
Speaker 1: a better sense of the some scars we've gathered over
Speaker 1: the years, we can look at how they've influenced our
Speaker 1: choices and see if we like the results. We don't
Speaker 1: want to make the same mistakes over and over again.
Speaker 1: We want to carry the gifts from our pasts into
Speaker 1: the present, but we can't assume our partner will receive
Speaker 1: them exactly as we expect. We don't want to bring
Speaker 1: gaps to our relationships expecting our partner to fill them.
Speaker 1: We want to fill our own gaps. As you observe
Speaker 1: your partner or potential partner, consider what draws you to them.
Speaker 1: Is your judgment influenced by outdated criteria from your past?
Speaker 1: If your parents gave you all their attention, are you
Speaker 1: expecting that from a partner to the movies you saw
Speaker 1: in your youth? Have you expecting to be swept off
Speaker 1: your feet? Was your first love remote and unavailable? So
Speaker 1: you're stuck in a pattern of repeating that dynamic. One
Speaker 1: of my clients was getting really angry at his wife
Speaker 1: when she didn't come home from work on time. I
Speaker 1: asked him why he was having such a strong reaction,
Speaker 1: and in the course of our work, he realized that
Speaker 1: his own mother never came home on time, and it
Speaker 1: had bothered his father. He had inherited his father's anxiety.
Speaker 1: I asked him what his wife's lateness signified for him.
Speaker 1: After some thought, he said, it's like she doesn't care
Speaker 1: about me and doesn't want to spend time with me.
Speaker 1: I suggested that he asked his wife about it, and
Speaker 1: we talked about how Instead of saying, so, how come
Speaker 1: you're always late in an accusatory tone, he could ask
Speaker 1: what have you been working on? Is it exciting or stressful?
Speaker 1: It turned out that his wife was stressed about a
Speaker 1: project and that she thought in three months time she'd
Speaker 1: be able to start coming home earlier. She didn't realize
Speaker 1: that it would have eased his mind to know about
Speaker 1: this project and when it might end. But even more
Speaker 1: important was his realization that the reason for her lateness
Speaker 1: differed from his interpretation. It wasn't a perfect happily ever after,
Speaker 1: but he was able to come to terms with the situation.
Speaker 1: Instead of enduring his inherited anxiety, he asked for time
Speaker 1: with her over the weekend, and they figured out how
Speaker 1: to address both of their needs. Our relationships aren't supposed
Speaker 1: to be responses to what our parents did and didn't
Speaker 1: give us or bombs for the insecurities of our youth.
Speaker 1: If we look to our partners to fill an emotional gap,
Speaker 1: this puts undue pressure on our partner. We're asking them
Speaker 1: to take responsibility for our happiness. That's like saying I
Speaker 1: won't drive my car until my partner puts gas in it.
Speaker 1: Why wait for someone else to make you feel good?
Speaker 1: And that's why it's so deeply important that we heal ourselves,
Speaker 1: taking charge of that process instead of shifting blame and
Speaker 1: responsibility to a partner. If we're trying to fill an
Speaker 1: old void, will choose the wrong partner. A partner can't
Speaker 1: fill every gap. They can't unpack our emotional baggage for us.
Speaker 1: Once we fulfill our own needs, we're in a better
Speaker 1: place to see what a relationship can give us. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: and always, you can give yourself what you want to receive.
Speaker 1: If you want to treat yourself, you could make plans
Speaker 1: to go someplace you've never been before, or arrange a
Speaker 1: birthday celebration for yourself, or dress beautifully for an upcoming event.
Speaker 1: If you want to feel respected at work, you could
Speaker 1: decide that you're going to make a list for your
Speaker 1: own benefit of everything you contributed to a project. We
Speaker 1: think of feeling appreciated, respected, and loved as more needs
Speaker 1: in a relationship. But when we attend to these needs
Speaker 1: for ourselves in small ways every day, then we don't
Speaker 1: have to wait for our partner to deliver them through
Speaker 1: a grand gesture. Try this, give yourself what you want
Speaker 1: to receive. Fill your own gaps by looking for ways
Speaker 1: to treat yourself the way you're looking for others to
Speaker 1: treat you. I never felt appreciated by my parents. If
Speaker 1: you want to be appreciated, what do you want to
Speaker 1: be appreciated for? What can you do every day that
Speaker 1: makes you feel appreciated. I never felt like my parents
Speaker 1: thought I was special. If you want to feel special,
Speaker 1: what do you want to feel special for? What can
Speaker 1: you do every day to make yourself feel special? My
Speaker 1: parents didn't respect my feelings or opinions. If you want
Speaker 1: to feel respected, what do you want to be respected for?
Speaker 1: What can you do every day to respect yourself? These
Speaker 1: are hard questions, so take your time with them. Answers
Speaker 1: may not come quickly. Ponder them for a day a week,
Speaker 1: you may gradually start to identify recurring negative thoughts that
Speaker 1: you've carried from your past. If you keep telling yourself
Speaker 1: I'm nobody until someone tells me I'm someone, it will
Speaker 1: make you more prone to insecurity, stress, and pressure. If
Speaker 1: you often tell yourself that you're not good enough, you
Speaker 1: become not good enough. We need to disrupt those negative
Speaker 1: patterns by developing new thought patterns. It may feel forced
Speaker 1: or fake, but when you practice these new positive thought patterns,
Speaker 1: you start living up to them. Check in with yourself.
Speaker 1: Set aside three minutes before you start your day and
Speaker 1: three minutes at the end of your day to make
Speaker 1: sure you're filling your own gaps. Attaching new habits to
Speaker 1: the beginning or end of things is natural to us
Speaker 1: and the best way to bring the behaviors and beliefs
Speaker 1: we need into our lives. In the three minutes you've
Speaker 1: set aside in the morning, sit by yourself and pick
Speaker 1: one thing you can do for yourself today to improve
Speaker 1: your day. It might be deciding to make a lunch
Speaker 1: date with your friend you haven't seen in a while.
Speaker 1: It might be showing up at a yoga class or
Speaker 1: taking no phone calls for the first hour of the
Speaker 1: morning to wake up and hope the day will be
Speaker 1: great is outsourcing the day Instead, Pick just one act
Speaker 1: you can perform yourself that might change your day for
Speaker 1: the better. In the last three minutes of the day,
Speaker 1: assess how you felt about the one thing you picked.
Speaker 1: Did it help your day? Should you try it again
Speaker 1: tomorrow or choose something else. Expanding our love, our preparation
Speaker 1: for love began with two rules, guiding us to solitude
Speaker 1: and self examination. We began practices to transform loneliness to
Speaker 1: productive time. In solitude, we unpacked our pasts and began
Speaker 1: to unlock oursome scars so that we can learn from
Speaker 1: our karma, whether you're in a relationship, looking for one
Speaker 1: or leaving one. These rules help you build and maintain
Speaker 1: the skills you need for love. By now, you're already
Speaker 1: better prepared for love than most people, and that opens
Speaker 1: the door for you to share your love with another person.
Speaker 1: One of the translators of the bugwad Geeta Knawan said,
Speaker 1: love grows by practice. There's no other way. Now. As
Speaker 1: we move into the practice of love, we will build
Speaker 1: our ability to recognize love, define it, develop it, trust it,
Speaker 1: and if and when we are ready to embrace love.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. I really hope you
Speaker 1: gained a ton of insight from this. I hope it
Speaker 1: provides some closure. I hope it provides some support and solace.
Speaker 1: And I really hope that you'll grab a copy of
Speaker 1: the full audiobook and listen to the rest of it
Speaker 1: at arilslove dot com. Thank you so much. I'll see
Speaker 1: you again next time. Dick