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SPEAKER_00
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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SPEAKER_00
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Gabby Collins.
0
SPEAKER_00
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
0
SPEAKER_00
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
0
SPEAKER_00
Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
0
SPEAKER_03
This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You re free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Guess what, Will?
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What s up, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
0
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_05
Hey everyone, I m so excited because we re going to be adding a really special offering onto the back of my solo episodes on Fridays.
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It s my short daily series on Calm, the Daily J. And let me tell you, it s unlike anything else I m doing.
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It s part storytelling, part mindfulness, with a wide range of unique, actionable insights, and it s also the only place you can meditate with me each and every day.
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I absolutely love all the wisdom we re sharing, all the lives we re changing.
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And whether you want to improve your mindset, your habits, or your relationships, whether you want to work on developing more focus, presence, or equanimity, building a Daily J routine just seven minutes every day can make a huge impact.
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SPEAKER_05
So make sure to check out the session at the end of the podcast, and then subscribe to Calm for your daily dose of the Daily J. Go to calm.com forward slash J for 40% off your membership today.
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SPEAKER_04
From the New York Times, this is Modern Love.
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I m Anna Martin.
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Today, we have an essay about being yourself when you re dating, which is so hard to not show off, just to show up as you.
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The essay is written by relationship expert Jay Shetty.
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And this guy is kind of having a moment.
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Please welcome to The Late Show, Jay Shetty.
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Will Smith is a big fan.
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I know Oprah s a big, big, big fan.
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Jay, you re amazing.
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Jay Shetty.
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Jay Shetty.
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Jay Shetty.
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Jay Shetty.
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He s the go-to life coach for over 50 million followers.
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He s written books, he s on a world tour, and this is huge for me, he officiated the wedding of J-Lo and Ben Affleck.
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On his podcast, he answers burning love questions,
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Whoa, right?
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This is such a common one for so many people now.
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Why do we need closure?
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Jay s advice is tailored for the internet, but it s rooted in Hindu philosophy.
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Jay was a monk in India for three years in his 20s, and that time gave him insights into the way that anyone can be more loving and more compassionate and more monk-like, even if you ve never been to an ashram.
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Today, we have Jay s modern love essay about dating like a monk and how that led him to the love of his life.
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Jay Shetty, so excited to have you on the show.
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Welcome to Modern Love.
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Oh, thank you so much for having me.
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I m so grateful to be here.
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So Jay, you became a monk right after you graduated university, which is not the traditional post-grad plan.
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How did you make the choice to dedicate yourself to this way of life?
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So the first monk I ever met was at a college event.
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I used to go and hear speakers and athletes and musicians and thought leaders speak all the time.
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I went there expecting very little and thinking I didn t need anything that he was going to share.
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But I walked out of there with a newfound direction.
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He was talking about how the greatest gift in life or the greatest purpose is to use our skills in the service of others.
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Now, when I look back, I realized that when I was 18, I d met people who were beautiful, I d met people who were rich, but I don t think I d met anyone who is truly content and truly self-aware, and he was all of those things.
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I thought, well, I want those things.
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Those things seem to be worthy of pursuit.
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For the next three to four years, I still had relationships, I was still going out, I was still doing anything that any person does at college.
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But I would spend my summer and Christmas vacations often visiting his monastery in India.
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Oh, wow.
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Okay.
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I d spend the other half interning at financial companies and corporations in London thinking that that s what I was going to do for work.
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Every time I d come back from the monastery, I d be full of joy and enthusiasm and energy.
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Every time I d finish my internship, I d think,
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I don t think that that s what I m meant to be doing.
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So I allowed myself to live two separate lives because I was just trying to learn and understand.
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I was very young.
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I even skipped my graduation ceremonies because I was already in the monastery.
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Was everyone in your life, how did they react to that choice?
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So a lot of my friends were really confused.
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They were just like, what are you doing?
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Like, you know, everyone was getting fancy jobs.
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And my extended family and community was actually quite negative.
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They were saying things like, you re wasting your life.
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You re never going to get a job again.
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You re joining a cult.
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Wow.
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What would you tell them was so important about this way of life that you needed to go dedicate your existence to it?
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Well, the two things that I saw the monks in those summer and Christmas vacations, what they dedicated their life to was self-mastery and service.
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And when I talk about self-mastery, I mean understanding ego, understanding envy, understanding
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what our emotions are trying to tell us and how to respond to them.
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And the other half was service, that they were living their life trying to build sustainable villages or food distribution programs to help the poor or disadvantaged children.
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And I saw them living their life in a way trying to positively impact others.
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And I thought, that s what I want to dedicate my life to, is figuring out what s going on inside of me and then help people figuring out what s going on outside.
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You became a monk in your 20s when most people are going out and flirting and going on dates.
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SPEAKER_04
And your modern love essay kind of begins with you listing out what your priorities were when you were a monk.
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Can you read that part of your essay for me?
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Yes, absolutely.
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So monks are famously celibate.
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But celibacy doesn t just mean you re not having sex.
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It means you re not interacting with other people in a way that could be considered romantic.
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The Sanskrit word for monk, brahmacharya, means the right use of energy.
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It s not that romance and sexual energy are wrong, but my practice teaches that we all have a limited amount of energy which can be directed in multiple directions or one.
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And when energy is scattered, it s difficult to create momentum or impact.
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You mentioned that these monks that you saw, who you so admired and were learning from, had this method of self-mastery.
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Can you tell me what you learned about that method of subduing the ego over those three years?
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Yeah, so from a more general standpoint, I d say that when you re living with a group of men in an ashram,
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Every single person is a mirror for your ego because you re having so many interactions daily that trigger you.
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What do you mean triggered?
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Like, you know, you have a difficult conversation or something?
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Yeah, it could be a difficult conversation.
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It could be that
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someone didn t save food for you when you were late to lunch or breakfast, right?
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It could be that you weren t selected to give a class this morning and someone else was, and you start noticing very worldly responses to spiritual tasks and you
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realize that just being in an ashram doesn t remove your ego.
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I d say that some of the practices that really helped were the practices of recognizing that everyone was a teacher and a student at the same time.
1
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This is something that was one of my favorite moments actually.
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I was with my monk teacher and he s in his 60s or 70s at the time and I m a young new monk.
1
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and every morning I would bow down to him, which was our custom, and he would bow down again back to me.
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I would always think how special that was because there was this mutual respect.
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I think that practice was really beautiful because you realize that you were never at the top and you were never at the bottom.
1
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Well, I want to talk about your decision to leave the ashram after three years.
1
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How did you make that call?
1
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So it was the most difficult decision I d made at the time.
1
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Communal living was really tough on my body in terms of my health.
1
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I would get sick more often in the ashram.
1
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You know, you re living in rooms from sometimes 30 to 100 people.
1
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And so there was a physical health component.
1
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And then there was this deeper realization that I loved what I was learning, but all I dreamt about and thought about was how could I share this with other people, because I know so many of my friends are dealing with this, but they re not going to come here.
1
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But I really feel the desire to share it with them.
1
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And I want to do that.
1
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And so there were these two
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self-awareness pieces, which led me to realize I wasn t a monk.
1
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And I think that s almost like realizing that you told someone you love them, but now you re falling out of love with them or you realize you re not in love with them anymore.
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Like that s how it felt.
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Did you talk to your teachers at all when you were thinking about making this hard decision to leave the ashram?
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I did, I did.
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And I was even scared to talk to them about it because I didn t want to feel judged or, you know, you re almost dropping out and you think, what are your teachers going to say?
1
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And my teacher said to me, when I told him that I think I should leave, he said to me that some people go to college and some of them become professors.
1
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And he said some of them leave after their degree and they become entrepreneurs or they work at a company.
1
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And he said, which one s better, the people who become professors or the people who leave?
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And I said, neither, I mean, whatever s right for the person.
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And he said, well, that s the same here.
1
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He said, some people come and they graduate to become monks and they stay here for many years.
1
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And some take their training like you did and leave and go on to do wonderful things.
1
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And he said, I think you ll be very happy if you re sharing what you ve learned and so you should do that.
1
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And so there was this really like understanding, open view of, no, maybe it s not right for you anymore.
1
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It was right for you then and not anymore.
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And there s nothing wrong with that.
1
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even in your decision to leave them, they had compassion for you, which is really beautiful.
1
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Exactly.
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That time was extremely tough for me, and it wasn t even a happy decision.
1
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And it was even more depressing because when I came back, everyone was like, oh, we told you so.
1
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Oh, you came back.
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Oh, you failed being a monk.
1
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And
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Then I was applying for jobs and 40 companies rejected me without an interview and I was thinking, oh, God.
1
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Because your resume had Ashram for three years on it and nothing else.
1
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Exactly.
1
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It s like what are your transferable skills, sitting silent and being still.
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No one wants that in their company.
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It was just almost like maybe everyone was right and maybe I did just waste three years.
1
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Really difficult time.
1
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When you came back to London, you know, like in a science fiction movie or something when people are frozen in those little pods and then they get released after thousands of years and they re like, what is a cell phone?
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Was it like that for you when you came back to London?
1
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Did you not recognize anything around you?
1
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The hardest part is having to do small talk when you ve done no small talk for three years.
1
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Right, you ve not had a conversation about the latest TV show or the latest movie.
1
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Have you heard about self-mastery?
1
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And they d be like, what?
1
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That s exactly it.
1
SPEAKER_00
That must have been really awkward as you started to get back into dating, too.
1
SPEAKER_00
What was that part of it like, like building a social life, dating again?
1
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I didn t really think about dating overall as, I guess I was a bit scared, but I didn t even think about it that way, but I definitely forgotten how to flirt.
1
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when I started talking to my now wife, because she was really good friends with my sister, and she d be over at our place, and I d be talking to her, right?
1
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I only really knew how to have really thoughtful, vulnerable, deep conversation.
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I do remember that she was always very inquisitive, and so that was kind of helpful for me to just totally be myself.
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That kind of made it easy for me to be around her, I guess, because it wasn t someone that I had to be someone I wasn t around.
1
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After the break, Jay Shetty goes on a date after leaving the ashram.
1
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And it does not go well.
1
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That s next.
1
SPEAKER_03
Guess what, Mango?
1
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What s that, Will?
1
SPEAKER_03
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
1
SPEAKER_02
I know, that s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
1
SPEAKER_03
Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
1
SPEAKER_02
Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s a better idea.
1
SPEAKER_02
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
1
SPEAKER_02
Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
1
SPEAKER_02
is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto.
1
SPEAKER_02
Also, what happened to Esperanto?
1
SPEAKER_03
Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
1
SPEAKER_03
How do dollar stores stay in business?
1
SPEAKER_03
And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
1
SPEAKER_03
There absolutely is.
1
SPEAKER_02
And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
1
SPEAKER_02
But if you love mind blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part Time Genius.
1
SPEAKER_03
Listen to Part Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_03
you
1
SPEAKER_04
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
1
SPEAKER_04
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
1
SPEAKER_04
I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
1
SPEAKER_04
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
1
SPEAKER_04
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
1
SPEAKER_04
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
1
SPEAKER_04
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
1
SPEAKER_04
We re discussing it all.
1
SPEAKER_04
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
1
SPEAKER_04
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
1
SPEAKER_04
Then, fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_04
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
1
SPEAKER_00
So Jay, you ve left the ashram, you re back living in London, trying to return to a normal life.
1
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You re working, you re starting to date, and eventually you go on a date with Radhi, who is now your wife.
1
SPEAKER_00
Can you read the part of your essay where you talk about your first date with her?
1
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Absolutely.
1
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The night was going to cost me nearly a week s income, and I wanted it to be perfect.
1
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We were at Locando Locatelli, one of the best restaurants in London.
1
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When we slid into a buttery leather booth, I winced.
1
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She was vegan, and vegans aren t known to appreciate leather booths.
1
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But the lights were low, the ambiance beautiful, and I was still hoping to hear how impressed she was.
1
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Do you think they have anything vegan on the menu?
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She said, sounding more worried than excited.
1
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They re famous for their fresh pasta, I said, trying to sound optimistic.
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But I had signed us up for a special tasting menu, and I didn t know how much choice she would have.
1
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Fresh pasta usually has eggs, she said, but we ll see.
1
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The service is amazing, right?
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I said.
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She smiled politely, but she wasn t eating much.
1
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After dinner, I drove her home and dropped her off outside her apartment.
1
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She thanked me and waved a friendly goodbye, but the evening had fallen flat.
1
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Clearly, I had no idea what I was doing.
1
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Ugh.
2
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I m feeling for you, Jay, in this moment.
2
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Oh my gosh.
2
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Why do you think it was so easy for you to slip back into this sort of un-monk-like mode of trying to impress Roddy?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, what is it about dating someone that made you slip back to the old way of life?
2
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I think we re so unaware and we underestimate how strongly our conditioning and wiring leads our life.
2
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Since I was young, I saw the dates that movies had in rom-coms.
2
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I had done those dates with partners in my teens and college life.
2
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And so you assume that I just have to keep repeating this cycle until it goes wrong.
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And I think we don t realize how many cycles and how many patterns we live in until we start to break them.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was only later that I figured out that my wife s favorite thing to do, she said to me, my ideal date would be going to Tesco s and walking down the bread aisle.
2
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Tesco s is England s Whole Foods.
2
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I think that she was speaking more from a funny tongue-in-cheek in terms of,
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Hey, I m simple.
2
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I just want to walk down an aisle at a grocery store and pick something up to eat.
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We don t need to go to a fancy restaurant.
2
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And I thought that that was refreshing and beautiful because it showed me that she didn t value those things.
2
SPEAKER_00
How long did it take you to sort of relax into yourself with Roddy?
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And what did it take to do that?
2
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Well, I give the credit to her because she was so good at not trying to impress someone back.
2
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I don t know, Radhi is just a special human being.
2
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She s so different and weird in a good way.
2
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I dedicated my first book to her and I wrote the dedication to my wife who s more monk than I ll ever be.
2
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I just think that a lot of the qualities I learned during my time as a monk, Radhe had them quite naturally.
2
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I look for monk qualities in everyone I meet, and I believe everyone, whether they ve been a monk or not, have them.
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But a monk life really helps us consciously train them and build them and develop them as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m struck by when you said that she was, even though it was a bit of a joke, like, I just want to walk down the bread aisle.
2
SPEAKER_00
That sort of simple, pure way of connecting does feel very monk-like of her.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it sounds like you were picking up on these sort of monk-like qualities in her even early on.
2
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I think that is well, but I think another thing that just came to mind is Radhi would always say, oh, I want you to come and spend time with my family.
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My family is really important to me.
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I remember when I first started hanging out at her house, her family would often look at her and be like, are you really going to wear that when he comes over?
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SPEAKER_01
Because she d just be in sweats or whatever.
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And she d be like, yeah, that is what I m going to wear, because that s what I would wear if I was at the house.
2
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Totally.
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And so she had this really honest, vulnerable, open way of being from the beginning.
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And I think that was definitely monk-like as well, to just say, yeah, this is who I am and this is how we ll be.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s part of your practice now to try to develop or even hone those monk qualities in other people, correct?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s your books and your podcast, that s sort of about sort of training folks who haven t spent years in an ashram to exhibit these qualities in their own life.
2
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Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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The literatures that I studied during my time as a monk really laid out the four stages of life almost as four classrooms of love.
2
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So the four stages of life are considered life in solitude or monk life or single life.
2
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The second stage is relationship life or married life.
2
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The third stage of life is almost reflecting and thinking about what you want to do next.
2
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And then the fourth stage of life is loving the world.
2
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And the monks believe that the most important love story is the love story you have with anyone and everyone and with the world.
2
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I think so often we ve built up this idea in society that the most important love story is your romantic love story.
2
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So many people either go through life single and think that they re unworthy of love because they don t have a romantic partner, or someone loses their romantic partner and then they feel like they don t have any love in their life.
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But the love of a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, all of these loves count.
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We can t say that romantic love is above or below any of these.
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Jay, of those four steps, what stage do you think you re in?
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I probably have a bit of a glimpse into all of them.
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Wow.
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Okay.
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Uh-huh.
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Probably at step two, practicing to love my wife and the people around me, but I have a glimpse into step three and four because step three requires a lot of healing to protect love within yourself.
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And then stage four is where I want to live every day, which is I want to love everyone and I want to share love with everyone on the planet and I want to be able to spread love across the world.
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Well, you are on a world tour, so I d say you re pretty far on your way to step four, I guess.
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Well, I think I m definitely, that s why I said glimpses, because when I m with my teachers, I see how they live in that space, and I see how I just have a little peek, and that s good enough to prove to me it s real.
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And so I feel grateful that there s more to learn, though.
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I m not upset I m not there.
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I m happy that I know where I have to go.
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All I m trying to give people is I don t want anyone to feel shame or guilt for how they currently live.
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I want you to feel clarity and curiosity about where you still have to go.
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Jay Shetty, thank you so much for coming on the show.
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Thank you for having me.
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So grateful and appreciate your time and energy.
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Modern Love is produced by Julia Botero, Christina Jossa, and Hans Butow.
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It s edited by Sarah Saracen.
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Our executive producer is Jen Poyant.
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This episode was mixed by Marion Lozano.
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Our show was recorded by Maddie Macielo.
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The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell.
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Original music in this episode by Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Rowan Nemistow.
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Digital production by Mahima Chablani and Nelke Loegli.
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Special thanks to Jay Shetty s team, Nicole Berg, and Annie Gingold.
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The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones.
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Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects.
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I m Anna Martin.
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Thanks for listening.
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I m not in this world to live up to your expectations.
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And you re not in this world to live up to mine.
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I just love that quote from Bruce Lee.
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And while it can feel really hard to overcome the limits placed on you by others, I m here to remind you, their limits don t have to be yours.
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The next seven minutes are about your potential and defying expectations.
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I m Jay Shetty, welcome to The Daily Jay.
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Before we go any further, let s get centered with three deliberate breaths.
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Inhaling and exhaling.
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Filling your lungs with ease.
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Emptying them with focus.
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Embracing this moment and tuning in.
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Today I d like to introduce you to one of the most exciting runners of the past 20 years.
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No, I m not talking about Usain Bolt or Alison Felix.
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I m talking about Fauja Singh, the world s oldest marathoner.
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Now Fauja was not born with a traditional athletic build.
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In fact, his legs were so skinny and weak that he couldn t walk at all until age 5.
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Growing up in a farming village in India, other kids would tease him.
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They called him Dunder, which is Punjabi for stick.
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Eventually, Fauja grew fit and healthy.
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He got married, had six children and a farm of his own.
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It was a good life, not without its challenges, but one that was full and fulfilling.
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Then, in his mid-80s, Fauja suffered the loss of his middle son Kuldeep.
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His wife had passed away a few years earlier, and the rest of his children had long ago left India.
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Fauja felt lonely and lost, so he moved to England to live with some of his remaining family.
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He started running with fellow Punjabi expats, and he found that it helped him cope with his grief.
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It gave him purpose.
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In fact, he was good at it, really good for his age.
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He had stayed in shape with his lifelong farm work, and when he challenged other seniors, he would win.
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Then, one day, he saw a marathon on TV.
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He didn t know exactly what the race was, but he wanted to compete.
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Even though Fauja enjoyed running, it seemed like a stretch to prepare for a 26-mile trek.
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But Fauja was determined.
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He found a coach to train him, and several months later, he finished the London Marathon in just under 7 hours.
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Since then, he has made global headlines, running an astonishing 8 more marathons.
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He s also broken several world records, including being the first 100-year-old to finish a marathon.
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Fowger s last competitive race was a 10K in 2013, just before he turned 102.
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He s now retired, but he still runs for fun at the age of 111.
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All my life, Fowger once said, people set limitations on me.
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They said I would never walk.
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They said I would never farm.
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They certainly never thought I would set records with my running.
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No matter what people said, I always believed in myself.
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I never gave up. 
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Fowger s story is remarkable because he didn t let the expectations of others determine his path or slow him down, despite the supposed barriers in his way.
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Maybe you can relate to that.
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Maybe there s something you wanna do, but people keep saying you can t, or you ve been teased for something that s supposed to hold you back.
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Whatever it may be, don t let outside opinions prevent you from pursuing your passions or chasing your dreams.
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Don t let others define what your life looks like.
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Remember, those are their limits, not yours.
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And as our time today winds down, let s meditate on that.
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So get comfortable wherever you are, allowing your body and mind to relax into the present.
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See if you can adopt a compassionate attitude here, embracing yourself and your experience.
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whatever this practice brings.
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This is a moment of rest.
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You don t have to do anything or be anywhere.
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And if you find your mind busy or your body restless, that s okay.
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There s nothing you need to do with your thoughts or emotions.
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Just observe that they exist and see if you can gently let them be.
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Allow yourself to feel whatever you re feeling right now.
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Meditation is a beautiful opportunity to just be aware of your present experience.
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And now let s open this up.
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Bring to mind an interest that you might like to pursue, but you re hesitant, wondering if time has passed you by.
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Can you open yourself up to the possibility that it s not actually too late?
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What s one step you could take toward that interest?
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I m looking forward to seeing what you re gonna do next.
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Thanks for being here today.
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I d love you to share this message with someone who could use it.
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And I ll see you tomorrow.
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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
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Let s learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.