Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today, on the bright side, we are keeping the love
Speaker 2: and Valentine's Day vibes. Going relationship guru Jillian Toreki is
Speaker 2: here to talk about her New York Times best selling
Speaker 2: book It Begins with You, Nine Hard Truths about Love
Speaker 2: that will Change your Life.
Speaker 3: It's Toesday, February eleventh.
Speaker 1: I'm Smoane Voice, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the
Speaker 1: bright side from Hello Sunshine. What does it truly take
Speaker 1: to build deep, meaningful relationships? The kind that feel both
Speaker 1: safe and exciting, steady yet passionate. Today we're sitting down
Speaker 1: with Jillian Toreki. She's a renowned relationship coach, a teacher
Speaker 1: and writer who spent years helping people break toxic cycles.
Speaker 1: She also helps them heal from heartbreak and create the
Speaker 1: love that they deserve. With her refreshingly honest insights, Jillian
Speaker 1: has become a go to voice for anyone seeking deeper connections,
Speaker 1: not just romantic relationship, but in all aspects of life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She hosts a podcast called Jillian on Love and writes
Speaker 2: a newsletter called Love Weekly. And listen, We're probably all
Speaker 2: bombarded with relationship and love experts on social media because
Speaker 2: it is a billion dollar industry. But what makes Jillian's
Speaker 2: advice different is that she goes heavy on accountability, this
Speaker 2: idea of looking at ourselves first before we blame the
Speaker 2: other person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her new book gets a right to the point.
Speaker 1: I'm talking no nonsense advice. So for anyone out there
Speaker 1: who's trying to figure out how to have a meaningful
Speaker 1: and loving relationship, this show's a good one. Let's bring
Speaker 1: her in. Jillian, Welcome to the Right Side. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for having me. We're really so excited to have
Speaker 1: you here. Both Simone and I when you launch your book,
Speaker 1: looked at each other and said, we have to have
Speaker 1: Jillian on this show.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I love hearing you talk about
Speaker 1: love is because you've really been through it yourself, the
Speaker 1: highs and the lows. I think so many people are
Speaker 1: either searching for love with no success, getting frustrated even
Speaker 1: in relationship, or sometimes even generally feeling hopeless about love.
Speaker 1: I would say I have friends across that spectrum. What
Speaker 1: would you say, so many of us are getting wrong
Speaker 1: in romance that's really leading to this dissatisfaction.
Speaker 5: Oh, there's just a lot of things. One is not
Speaker 5: understanding that who you choose to partner with is the
Speaker 5: most important decision you'll ever make. Another one is that
Speaker 5: there's no one you could meet, the most amazing, perfect
Speaker 5: for you person. But if you don't do the work
Speaker 5: and you don't show up as a good partner, things
Speaker 5: are going to fall apart.
Speaker 4: So really it takes two.
Speaker 5: A relationship is not just something that's there to meet
Speaker 5: your needs. It's something that you need to participate in
Speaker 5: and co create. I know I'm listening off a few things,
Speaker 5: but these are the main ones that you might be
Speaker 5: running into problems because of some unfinished business from your
Speaker 5: past that you need to address, and that we're just
Speaker 5: not taught in school the basics of love and loving
Speaker 5: ourselves and being in a romantic relationship.
Speaker 1: That's so well said too. I remember having my first
Speaker 1: boyfriend and not knowing if things were normal or not,
Speaker 1: and then having my first deep love and still not
Speaker 1: even knowing if certain things were normal or not. Can
Speaker 1: we have a PSA for a love class in high school?
Speaker 4: I mean yes, can we?
Speaker 1: I feel like we need this? Can you can you
Speaker 1: write the curriculum?
Speaker 5: I would love to, but yeah, this is the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we just don't learn these things, and we don't learn
Speaker 5: the value of it, and why it's so important to
Speaker 5: really work on this aspect of our lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Danielle, to what you were just saying, do
Speaker 2: we ever get to a point where we understand what
Speaker 2: is normal and what's not in relationships?
Speaker 5: I think it's like it's how you define normal. I
Speaker 5: think more it's what's the tolerable versus the intolerable. And
Speaker 5: I think one thing that's not quote unquote normalized enough
Speaker 5: is it's normal to have.
Speaker 4: Some doubt and some ambivalence. Now, you don't want to
Speaker 4: have a ton of ambivalence, and.
Speaker 5: You don't want to have a ton of doubt, but
Speaker 5: it's normal to wake up sometimes and say is this right?
Speaker 5: You know, what is right for me? Just that's sort
Speaker 5: of part of being human. And then also it's so important.
Speaker 5: A lot of people don't recognize that there are certain
Speaker 5: things that are absolutely intolerable in a relationship, but there's
Speaker 5: going to be more things that you're going.
Speaker 4: To have to be flexible about.
Speaker 1: Well, in that vein, I'm curious why you think people
Speaker 1: pursue or even stay in unhealthy relationships.
Speaker 4: So why do people stay in relationships that.
Speaker 6: Are unhealthy for them because they feel hopeless and helpless.
Speaker 6: They want it to be different, but they don't know
Speaker 6: how to be different. Why do people stay in relationships
Speaker 6: with people who treat them badly because they do I
Speaker 6: don't recognize that they deserve more. That kind of goes
Speaker 6: full circle to or a conversation about the tolerable versus
Speaker 6: the intolerable, like they literally they don't know what's like
Speaker 6: you said, like, how do we know what's normal in
Speaker 6: a relationship? They don't know that what's happening is actually
Speaker 6: not normal. And sometimes they're there because they don't have
Speaker 6: the money to leave, you know, sometimes there's socioeconomic things.
Speaker 6: But let's just suppose it's not that pathological fear of
Speaker 6: being alone, a pathological fear of it not working out.
Speaker 6: Usually within the cadence of like a quote unquote toxic
Speaker 6: relationship is periods of closeness followed by very intense disruption
Speaker 6: of that closeness, like conflict, and then coming back to
Speaker 6: closeness again. And so what it becomes is a roller
Speaker 6: coaster that, believe it or not, you become habituated to.
Speaker 6: So it takes a tremendous amount of courage for a
Speaker 6: lot of people to leave that. So why do people
Speaker 6: seek out these relations No one seeks out an unhealthy relationship.
Speaker 6: Nobody wants that you said something that was super wise,
Speaker 6: Which is if you don't really know who you are,
Speaker 6: if you don't have a sense of what is that
Speaker 6: you deserve, and you don't have a sense of what
Speaker 6: you need in a relationship, you'll seek out things that are.
Speaker 4: Familiar to you.
Speaker 6: So if you had a very troubling relationship with a
Speaker 6: parent as a child, or you saw your parents have
Speaker 6: a very troubling relationship, even though it's so illogical to
Speaker 6: think that we would go for someone who mirrors that experience,
Speaker 6: to our unconscious, it's incredibly familiar.
Speaker 4: So we're just doing what we know. And then once
Speaker 4: we're in it, we have our own stuff.
Speaker 6: We don't know how to have a conversation when we're afraid,
Speaker 6: we don't know how to be an advocate for ourselves,
Speaker 6: we don't know how to regulate our anger, and we
Speaker 6: don't understand the ramifications of resentment, and so that's typically
Speaker 6: that's it. You know, I'll never forget It was just
Speaker 6: a few months into my marriage, and it was just
Speaker 6: I was having a really hard time, and I'll never
Speaker 6: forget my mom asking me.
Speaker 4: Do you think you made a mistake?
Speaker 1: WHOA?
Speaker 6: And she said it in a way that was compassionate, like,
Speaker 6: we all make mistakes. Maybe this is just a mistake.
Speaker 6: And I couldn't even fathom that, because I was like,
Speaker 6: that's a mistake. That's so huge, and I didn't even
Speaker 6: know how to digest and process that. But it certainly
Speaker 6: crossed my mind. It wasn't like, oh, I'm in the
Speaker 6: wrong relationship once we broke up. I mean, typically breakups
Speaker 6: don't happen out of the blue. The way in which
Speaker 6: one is broken up with can be very jarring and
Speaker 6: very abandoning and very out of the blue. But typically
Speaker 6: there's months, sometimes years leading up to that demise where
Speaker 6: you're unhappy. Else why so many people, let's say, who
Speaker 6: were heartbroken or rejected. Part of the processing is to
Speaker 6: help them remember that you weren't actually that happy. Yeah,
Speaker 6: this was actually very very difficult, and to remind people.
Speaker 3: Of that, Jillian.
Speaker 2: As you were just speaking, I was thinking about the
Speaker 2: tremendous heartbreak that you suffered. I cannot imagine a more
Speaker 2: horrific way for a marriage to end. You were suffering
Speaker 2: a miscarriage and your husband basically ended the marriage over
Speaker 2: the phone. Uh yeah, text, where are you at in
Speaker 2: terms of your faith in relationships now? Because for me,
Speaker 2: that would have rattled me to my core.
Speaker 4: It did rattle me to my core.
Speaker 6: I mean it rattled me to the point where there
Speaker 6: was a long time where I would just look at
Speaker 6: men and just be almost afraid of them and lost
Speaker 6: all trust in them and faith in them, lost all
Speaker 6: trust and myself. But it's been many years now, and
Speaker 6: so I process and through doing this in our work
Speaker 6: and just understanding the nature of relationships.
Speaker 4: No, I don't feel rattled by it anymore.
Speaker 6: But what I will say is the interesting thing about
Speaker 6: doing this work with people that you have to be
Speaker 6: very careful of. And this is something that coaches that
Speaker 6: therapists talk about often, which is, don't get influenced by
Speaker 6: other people's bad experiences.
Speaker 1: Before we get into your book, I have one question
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, I interviewed somebody about heartbreak and she said,
Speaker 1: I really miss the person I was before that heartbreak.
Speaker 1: I miss that girl, that girl that was trusting and
Speaker 1: a little bit more naive and didn't want to look
Speaker 1: at my boyfriend's phone and all those things, and I
Speaker 1: went through a really brutal breakup, and I feel like
Speaker 1: it was the best lesson in my life. Pushed me
Speaker 1: towards therapy and a lot of really necessary growth. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of happy that the naivete lifted a bit. Yes,
Speaker 1: while I still understand what she's saying, there's pieces of
Speaker 1: me that like were like, I don't jump into love
Speaker 1: the same way I used to. And you had such
Speaker 1: a brutal breakup. I'm curious how you feel about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when I think about what you're sharing, it's innocence, right,
Speaker 6: It's the loss of innocence, And I think that that's
Speaker 6: always something that we grieve in our lives, is because
Speaker 6: with innocence, we're not so aware of the darkness that
Speaker 6: exists in life. But in reality, naivete and dating just
Speaker 6: means that you're gonna be with predatory people, and so
Speaker 6: we don't want to be naive That's interesting and so
Speaker 6: but there's heartbreak and then there's betrayal, and yeah, you
Speaker 6: can miss that person beforehand, and I think it's just
Speaker 6: one of the hard things about being a human being,
Speaker 6: and one of the conundrums of being a human being.
Speaker 4: What is the opposite of innocence, it's wisdom. And so
Speaker 4: you learn all these things and you're very familiar with
Speaker 4: the darkness, but you have to make sure that you
Speaker 4: don't then get too sucked into the darkness and think
Speaker 4: everything is dark.
Speaker 2: We've got to take a short break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back with Jillian to Reki.
Speaker 3: And we're back with relationship coach. Jillian to Reki.
Speaker 1: You offer these nine big truths, and so Simone and
Speaker 1: I want to go through a couple of them with you.
Speaker 1: The first one is it begins with you, and you
Speaker 1: say that the common denominator in all of our relationships
Speaker 1: is one thing ourselves in theory that makes absolute perfect
Speaker 1: sense in practice. What does that mean?
Speaker 6: So what it doesn't mean is the platitude that the
Speaker 6: problem is you. Yeah, the problem could be you, but
Speaker 6: just because it begins with you, it doesn't mean you could.
Speaker 6: I definitely have been in a relationship or in relationships
Speaker 6: with people who were objectively speaking more quote unquote problematic than.
Speaker 4: You, but you chose them and you fell in love
Speaker 4: with them.
Speaker 6: And so our lives are really the sum total decisions
Speaker 6: and the choices that we make. And so what it
Speaker 6: really means in practicality is hey, there is so little
Speaker 6: that we have control of in this life. In fact,
Speaker 6: most things are not in our control. Most things that
Speaker 6: we think our control are an illusion. But we do
Speaker 6: have control over how we're going to show up in
Speaker 6: our beliefs at all of that. And isn't that incredibly empowering?
Speaker 6: And that you have to be the change that you
Speaker 6: wish to see in your love life? And so in practicality,
Speaker 6: it's so, let's investigate the beliefs that you have about
Speaker 6: love rather about men or women, and let's see where
Speaker 6: you got them. If you have a really negative belief
Speaker 6: about love, at what point was that belief born? Oh,
Speaker 6: it was born after my last relationship and this breakup
Speaker 6: and this horrible experience. Okay, well, let's put some framework
Speaker 6: around that. What are some of the red flags that may.
Speaker 4: Be you ignored?
Speaker 6: Is it possible that you had an experience that maybe
Speaker 6: billions of people have had as well, that this is
Speaker 6: just sort of part of it. There's so many different
Speaker 6: things to kind of look at. But it's not going
Speaker 6: to change by blaming mom. It's not going to change
Speaker 6: by blaming dad. It's not going to be changed by
Speaker 6: blaming your exes, and it's not going to change with
Speaker 6: you blaming yourself, but it is going to change if
Speaker 6: you can actually really take the step, the courageous step
Speaker 6: of doing the necessary self examination to grow into the
Speaker 6: person that you want to be in a relationship.
Speaker 3: There's a part in the book a phrase really blew
Speaker 3: my mind. Jillian.
Speaker 2: You said, pedestals are for teenagers. They have no place
Speaker 2: in adult love.
Speaker 6: I love this one so much, Jillian, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: it's so funny. I I and I think there's some
Speaker 6: nuance to it when both people are really I think
Speaker 6: there's something beautiful about two people being in a relationship
Speaker 6: and seeing the other as really wonderful, and maybe seeing
Speaker 6: the other as more wonderful than the person can see
Speaker 6: as themselves. You can interpret that as a pedestal, but
Speaker 6: in the purpose of that chapter for teenagers, it's I
Speaker 6: don't know you, but I'm going to project my thirteen
Speaker 6: year old ideal of what like a perfect partner is
Speaker 6: or my crush onto you, and I'm going to make
Speaker 6: you really really important even though I don't know you,
Speaker 6: And then one thing could be well, once I do
Speaker 6: get to know you and I see that you're actually
Speaker 6: not a representation of my ideal.
Speaker 4: But you are a real man or a real woman,
Speaker 4: not this Phanta that I have projected onto you.
Speaker 6: Then you're going to fall off the pedestal, and then
Speaker 6: you are going to feel like the fallen hero, and
Speaker 6: I'm just going to be disappointed. And that's teenage love.
Speaker 6: Teenage love is all about lust. It's all about fantasy
Speaker 6: and excitement. It's not really about Oh, we're too real, flawed,
Speaker 6: nuanced people with depth, and we have to kind of
Speaker 6: accept each other.
Speaker 1: I also feel like when you put somebody on a pedestal,
Speaker 1: you act really weird, like the real you isn't able
Speaker 1: to come out totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yes, because when you put someone up on a pedestal,
Speaker 6: they're up here, you're down here, and so you never
Speaker 6: you always feel like they're out of your league or
Speaker 6: better than you.
Speaker 4: You feel less then.
Speaker 6: And so to your point, it's how am I going
Speaker 6: to live up?
Speaker 4: How am I going to be enough for this person
Speaker 4: who I've already decided is so amazing that I'm actually
Speaker 4: not incredibly worthy of them. So I have to figure
Speaker 4: a way to scramble to be worthy for them, And
Speaker 4: that's always a bad scenario.
Speaker 1: This next one that you write, the mind is a battlefield,
Speaker 1: and stay in your head or your relationship is dead.
Speaker 1: So drop some wisdom on us. What role do our
Speaker 1: minds play in our relationships?
Speaker 6: Yeah, our minds are designed to keep us safe, not
Speaker 6: to really make us happy. To learn how to feel
Speaker 6: fulfilled and to find joy in life is something that
Speaker 6: many of us have to train ourselves to do. I know,
Speaker 6: for me, I was raised in a family. I was
Speaker 6: raised in an immigrant family, so it was pretty much
Speaker 6: like the glasses half empty. So I had to really
Speaker 6: train myself to learn a little bit more positivity in life.
Speaker 6: And so that chapter is really about It's a chapter
Speaker 6: about the mind and more importantly, why mind fullness is
Speaker 6: so important and such an important element to a relationship,
Speaker 6: and how.
Speaker 4: Easy it is to be mindless.
Speaker 2: Can you say more about mindfulness and relationships? Why is
Speaker 2: that so essential?
Speaker 6: Yeah, because mindfulness it's sort of like self awareness. It's
Speaker 6: I'm being mindful of the fact that I'm telling a
Speaker 6: story right now, I'm being mindful of my partner's needs,
Speaker 6: I'm being mindful of my own prejudices. So, for example,
Speaker 6: your spouse, let's say you're married to a man, they
Speaker 6: do something that you don't like, then how easy you
Speaker 6: can go into a narrative about men men in general, right,
Speaker 6: and then that feeds the machine and then all of
Speaker 6: a sudden you're hating in some way your spouse. So
Speaker 6: mindfulness is the ability to have that sort of discernment
Speaker 6: of when you're going into that kind of rhetoric in
Speaker 6: your mind and interrect that with hey, I need to
Speaker 6: soften a little bit. This is about me right now,
Speaker 6: this isn't about them. Another thing of mindfulness is, you know,
Speaker 6: we can be stressed out in a bad mood for
Speaker 6: various reasons. But when we are stressed out or tired
Speaker 6: or in a bad mood just not in a good
Speaker 6: emotional state, psycho emotional state, physiological state, even that's going
Speaker 6: to put a filter in front of our eyes and
Speaker 6: we're going to see the world and the people in
Speaker 6: it clouded. And so mindfulness is when we're frustrated, for example,
Speaker 6: with our partner, is just having the awareness to say,
Speaker 6: is this something like did they do something.
Speaker 4: That perhaps crossed the boundary with me? Or am I
Speaker 4: really tired and stressed out and going through a hard time?
Speaker 4: And so nothing that they do is going to be
Speaker 4: good enough right now. Yeah. Yeah, and that level of
Speaker 4: mind Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've never thought about mindfulness this way. I never thought
Speaker 2: about it in the context of a relationship.
Speaker 6: It's that was one of the most profound lessons that
Speaker 6: I learned, and just being mindful because it's also being
Speaker 6: mindful of our energy and how we impact our environment.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one thing that's helped me, both in romantic
Speaker 1: relationship and in any relationship. And it's like, every time
Speaker 1: I feel myself getting critical, I'm like, okay, swap it
Speaker 1: with curiosity. Oh and it's nice asking the quick because
Speaker 1: you mentioned such beautiful questions, Jillian, and it's like that's
Speaker 1: the check in because it's the same C word, And
Speaker 1: like I need to swap it in my mind because
Speaker 1: I feel the criticism and the judgment come up and
Speaker 1: I don't like that. It doesn't make me feel good.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that's so good.
Speaker 4: Oh that's very mindful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very very I'm not a total mess.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, you're not a mess at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am a total mess.
Speaker 2: Well, there are so many bangers in this book. We're
Speaker 2: going to try to get through as many as we can.
Speaker 2: But another reframe that stood out to me is lust
Speaker 2: is not the same thing as love. This is a
Speaker 2: complicated one because when I hear that, I think it's
Speaker 2: still really hard for us to understand myself included, that
Speaker 2: physical chemistry and true connection with someone are actually two
Speaker 2: very different things, although I feel like both are necessary. Yes,
Speaker 2: how do we start to understand the difference and how
Speaker 2: will that change things once we do?
Speaker 6: Okay, so we were just talking a moment ago about pedestals, right, Yes,
Speaker 6: lust is something that just sort of happens. Love is
Speaker 6: also a choice, it's a practice, it's an action. It's like, oh,
Speaker 6: I'm not really in the mood to be very loving
Speaker 6: right now, but I'm in a relationship and I'm going
Speaker 6: to transcend that and give love. And people think, well,
Speaker 6: that's exhausting, Well, but you get so much in return.
Speaker 6: What you do is you get to then have an
Speaker 6: exchange of love between you and your partner, and that's
Speaker 6: very fulfilling. And lust if we're bored, if we're lonely,
Speaker 6: if you don't have a lot of purpose in life,
Speaker 6: these are all things that when we meet someone and
Speaker 6: we're attracted to them, it can make us super super excited,
Speaker 6: to the point where romantic right, and we think if
Speaker 6: I'm attracted to this person, then they must be.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: If I'm attracted to this person, then I should pursue
Speaker 6: a relationship with them. When I'm attracted to this person,
Speaker 6: they must be amazing.
Speaker 4: No no, no, no no, you're just experiencing chemistry. That doesn't
Speaker 4: mean they're amazing. Doesn't mean they're not amazing. They could be.
Speaker 4: They could be.
Speaker 6: It's just don't confuse that with love. Don't confuse with
Speaker 6: thinking someone is the one because it's three months in
Speaker 6: and you're really excited about them. So have the excitement,
Speaker 6: but process your enthusiasm to understand that all those chemicals
Speaker 6: and everything that's happening, that is just you in life.
Speaker 6: Alla land in a fantasy, very excited about someone, and
Speaker 6: you just have to get to know them, and that
Speaker 6: so many people are chasing that high when really love
Speaker 6: is what happens. Like I said, after the honeymoon, once
Speaker 6: you're starting to build trust and safety, it doesn't mean
Speaker 6: the chemistry goes away. But all that craziness in the
Speaker 6: beginning is something that is really more about the danger
Speaker 6: of it all, the newness of it all, the novelty
Speaker 6: of it all, and you don't want to confuse that
Speaker 6: you can make a relationship just work based on that alone.
Speaker 3: You actually you mentioned three months.
Speaker 2: And in the book you say that that's kind of
Speaker 2: like the magic number that if you're not progressing or
Speaker 2: integrating into each other's lives at that point, things are,
Speaker 2: you know, not really looking good for the potential of
Speaker 2: the relationship. When I read that, I was like, Ooh,
Speaker 2: I feel like that's going to be so hard for
Speaker 2: a lot of people to hear. Necessary again coming back
Speaker 2: to hard truths, because we tend to still want to
Speaker 2: hold on to it, and we're hopeful about the potential
Speaker 2: of the relationship and we want to fight for it.
Speaker 3: Why that number? Why is three months so telling?
Speaker 2: And what should we do in that situation if we
Speaker 2: aren't integrating at that three month mark?
Speaker 6: And look, sometimes it's sooner. I'm not a rules girl
Speaker 6: or anything like that. It's and progression looks different. Just
Speaker 6: but if you are spending a lot of time with
Speaker 6: someone and you're sleeping over and you're and you're having sex,
Speaker 6: and three months in you're not talking about, Hey, where
Speaker 6: do we want this to go? What are our intentions here?
Speaker 6: I mean, I think people should be meeting each other's
Speaker 6: friends and family very very early on, because you can't
Speaker 6: really understand or know a person without seeing them within
Speaker 6: the context of their environment. So I think that has
Speaker 6: to happen really soon. But a lot of people will
Speaker 6: kind of get in this sort of bubble and enter
Speaker 6: what is referred to as a situationship where it's like
Speaker 6: you're spending all this time together but there's no intentionality
Speaker 6: behind it, and three months, Like, I mean, I know
Speaker 6: people who've spent every weekend with someone, you know, speaking
Speaker 6: to them every day, and then you know, three months
Speaker 6: and they're like, yeah, I don't want to put a
Speaker 6: label on it. That's absolutely ridiculous, and that person's not
Speaker 6: interested in the way that you think they are. They
Speaker 6: want all the benefits of being in a relationship without
Speaker 6: the responsibility. So it's around three months, But the bigger
Speaker 6: point is are you progressing, Are you having the necessary conversations?
Speaker 4: Do you feel like it's growing.
Speaker 6: Anything that we partake in, whether it's a relationship or not,
Speaker 6: has to grow.
Speaker 4: If it's not growing, it becomes stuck. If it's stuck
Speaker 4: eventually dies.
Speaker 6: So you just want to feel like there's progressing and
Speaker 6: that there's the necessary conversations to make it progress. Don't
Speaker 6: get in something that just stays the same three months in.
Speaker 6: You don't know And your next question is how do
Speaker 6: you get it to go anywhere? You say, what are
Speaker 6: we doing here? Would you instead of just saying what
Speaker 6: do you want?
Speaker 4: This is what I want?
Speaker 6: I think it's time for us to figure out what
Speaker 6: our intention is are with this, Like where we're going
Speaker 6: with this? This is where I would really love for
Speaker 6: it to go.
Speaker 4: How do you feel.
Speaker 1: It's time for another quick break? But don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Jillian to Reki, And we're
Speaker 1: back with relationship coach. Jillian to Reki. What do you
Speaker 1: think love is, Jillian? Because like, if you had such
Speaker 1: a great definition of chemistry and lust, how do I
Speaker 1: know if I'm in love? Yeah?
Speaker 6: You know, it's a hard thing to define. I think
Speaker 6: that when you can say to yourself, I can live
Speaker 6: without this person, but I really really don't want to.
Speaker 1: That's really nice.
Speaker 4: This person's happiness and their needs and their well being
Speaker 4: is as important to me as my own. I want
Speaker 4: them to be I want them to succeed in life.
Speaker 6: I really want them to be happy like I want
Speaker 6: them to have everything that there are desires.
Speaker 4: That could be love, that could be love for a
Speaker 4: child too. In love is all that, And I want
Speaker 4: to have sex with you. And maybe I don't want
Speaker 4: to have sex.
Speaker 6: With you every single day because I've been with you
Speaker 6: for so long, but there's still desire there.
Speaker 1: I heard you recently on a podcast say, don't play
Speaker 1: house with a stranger. Yes, And I know exactly what
Speaker 1: you mean. So many of my girlfriends do this, okay,
Speaker 1: And I don't mean to like shine the light on them,
Speaker 1: but I see them do it. They're at the farmer's
Speaker 1: market on Sunday with this guy that they met on Thursday,
Speaker 1: and they spend the whole weekend together and they're acting like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're walking a dog, and I'm like, are
Speaker 1: you guys dating or what's going on?
Speaker 4: Yeah, don't do it that?
Speaker 5: See?
Speaker 1: Is that a new thing? Did that happen in our parents' generation?
Speaker 6: I don't think that happened in our parents' generation, because
Speaker 6: I think in our parents' generation, especially my parents' generation,
Speaker 6: it was more a little bit more formal than that.
Speaker 6: I think there was and I think there was dating.
Speaker 6: I also think there were certain rules around sex and
Speaker 6: all of that and no, so I think that's a
Speaker 6: little bit more modern. I think it's more modern. Let's
Speaker 6: just put it that way. It's just a false sense
Speaker 6: of intimacy, and I really worry about it, especially for women,
Speaker 6: because then they think, oh, like, we're in a relationship,
Speaker 6: but that could be there could be a whole different
Speaker 6: reality that's happening for the other person. And then you're
Speaker 6: doing that with someone who is a stranger, you don't
Speaker 6: even know if you like them. And it's just when
Speaker 6: we do that because we want so badly to be
Speaker 6: in a relationship and it feels so comfortable, but it's
Speaker 6: when you don't know someone and you don't have that
Speaker 6: trust and you haven't had those conversations, it can then
Speaker 6: just leave you feeling very empty in size. So then
Speaker 6: you part for the weekend and then you don't even
Speaker 6: hear from them, and then you just had this experience
Speaker 6: and it can just be very disorienting.
Speaker 1: What's coming up for most women nowadays?
Speaker 4: Single women or coupled women.
Speaker 1: Oh both. Let's start with single women.
Speaker 4: I think for single women it's the same thing.
Speaker 6: Well, finding someone emotionally available, that's a big one for them.
Speaker 6: But I also think there's a lot of women these
Speaker 6: days who are wanting to really live their life to
Speaker 6: the fullest and trying to like figure out a way
Speaker 6: to really live their life to the fullest where they
Speaker 6: can want a relationship but it doesn't become so all
Speaker 6: consuming for them. I think women in relationships, a lot
Speaker 6: of what comes up for them is just you know,
Speaker 6: it's the same thing. It's just needs being met, being heard,
Speaker 6: being seen. A lot of women who have children, it's
Speaker 6: exhausting trying to figure out their identity. I'm a mother,
Speaker 6: I'm a wife, I'm a partner. Where am I on
Speaker 6: all this? So just learning that, I think that that's
Speaker 6: always a big one. Those are the biggest ones for.
Speaker 3: Sure, Jillian.
Speaker 2: Of the nine hard truths that you address in your book,
Speaker 2: which one has been the hardest truth for you to
Speaker 2: accept in your own journey?
Speaker 6: I think the hardest one was making the last one,
Speaker 6: which I think is going to be a tough one
Speaker 6: for most people. You have to make peace with your parents.
Speaker 2: That felt very deliberate that you would include that as
Speaker 2: like the final step in the process.
Speaker 6: Yes, it was very It was very deliberate that that
Speaker 6: would be the last one.
Speaker 4: It's the hardest truth I think for people to get.
Speaker 4: And you know, my relationship with my father, which was
Speaker 4: always extremely troubled, was just that theme in my life
Speaker 4: that sort of just followed me everywhere, and so learning
Speaker 4: how to let go of the hatred and fear.
Speaker 6: That I had towards him and of him was a
Speaker 6: huge part of my personal development or spiritual journey.
Speaker 4: And really what that chapter is about. And I certainly
Speaker 4: don't if someone's been and I mentioned this, if someone's
Speaker 4: been severely abused or molested, I'm not saying make peace
Speaker 4: with your parents.
Speaker 6: You can have a great relationship with your parent. This
Speaker 6: is just about one. For some people, it's emancipating themselves
Speaker 6: from their parents' belief system so that they can live
Speaker 6: the life that they feel that they're meant to live,
Speaker 6: versus living the life that they believe their parents want
Speaker 6: them to live.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's so big. That is a huge one.
Speaker 4: It's a big one.
Speaker 6: And another one is the story that you have of
Speaker 6: your parent that's maybe troubled. How much does that have
Speaker 6: a choke hold in your life? How much is it
Speaker 6: controlling your life? And is it time to look at
Speaker 6: the story differently from the perspective of being an adult
Speaker 6: rather than through the filter of yourself as a child,
Speaker 6: and a lot of that letting go forgiveness, compassion reframing.
Speaker 4: I would not be here sitting here today.
Speaker 6: I would never have written the book had I had
Speaker 6: the father that I deserve to have. What we want
Speaker 6: in childhood does not guarantee a good life. It doesn't
Speaker 6: mean getting what you want means you're gonna have a
Speaker 6: bad life, no, but it doesn't actually guarantee you a
Speaker 6: good life. There's some people out there who have the
Speaker 6: most interesting lives and they come from a men's trauma.
Speaker 6: So it's sometimes just understanding that is what can help
Speaker 6: you reframe the story.
Speaker 2: Jillian, this has been so enlightening and I feel like
Speaker 2: we have barely scratched the surface.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, thank.
Speaker 4: You, thank you so much for having me. The two
Speaker 4: of you are delightful and it was really great to
Speaker 4: be here.
Speaker 2: Jillian Treki is a certified relationship coach, teacher and author.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, in honor of American
Speaker 1: Heart Month and Valentine's Day, we're talking all about heart
Speaker 1: health with cardiologists doctor Jennifer Hath She joins us to
Speaker 1: share tips and information that could literally save your life.
Speaker 1: You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 2: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
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Speaker 2: Danielle Robe.
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Speaker 2: See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.