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Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I ve got an invitation for you.
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Join me at this year s Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to unleash your true greatness.
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This is the one time a year
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that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful transformative weekend.
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People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jaspreet Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Cinchero, and many more.
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You ll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.
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So if you re ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023.
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Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I ll see you there.
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Loving someone who s struggling isn t a bad thing, but it can become a toxic thing if you make yourself responsible for their transformation.
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You make yourself responsible for their joy, their happiness, their peace, their health.
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That is a toxic sign.
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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I m so glad that you re here today because I just believe
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The quality of our life is truly related and connected to the quality of our relationships.
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And sometimes, sometimes, one of the most challenging relationships to have is the relationship with yourself.
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You may be in great relationships with other people.
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You may have amazing friends.
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You may have a great partnership and romantic relationship and parents.
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But if you treat yourself poorly, I hate to say it, but you are in a toxic relationship with yourself.
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So make sure you re being aware of this as we go over these signs and you take inventory.
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And we work on the self-coaching tools to support you in taking courageous action in your life, not only with others and creating boundaries with others, but also in creating boundaries and being aware of the relationship you have with yourself.
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But let s talk about what a toxic relationship is.
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Well, the definition is toxic relationships are those where one party seeks control over the other to achieve selfish goals and use the other party for their own benefit.
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So think back in your life.
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the relationships you had in your past?
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Has there been a relationship where someone else has seeked control over you to achieve some type of selfish goals for their own benefit?
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Maybe they weren t even aware of it.
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Maybe it was subconscious or was an unconscious thing that they did, but that s what you felt.
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And that s what you experienced.
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And your experience is valid.
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Maybe it wasn t intentional, but they were doing it for you.
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And that s what it felt like for you.
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Or maybe you ve done that in the past, whether it be knowing or unknowing.
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Whether you were dealing with some type of wound and you were unconsciously trying to control someone else to protect your own emotional boundaries and to feel safe.
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And so you were in some type of control in other areas.
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And maybe it wasn t malicious or horrible, but
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And some of it, you were there a part of it as well.
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So just take inventory and think about it again, toxic relationships are those where one party seeks control over the other to achieve selfish goals and use the other party for their own benefit.
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Now listen, again, we are in a relationship because we want to feel connected, we want to feel intimate, we want to feel seen, we want to feel heard, we want to
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connect and share our life and our journey and adventures with someone else.
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So in some sense, we are in relationship all to be of benefit.
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We want to experience something greater than just doing it on our own.
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But when it becomes toxic, when that s
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not in the other person s mutual benefit as well.
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So here s five signs of toxic relationships.
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Number one, consistent lying and a foundational process of mistrust.
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So, think about this.
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Has someone in your life, in a relationship maybe you re currently in or a previous relationship, were they consistently lying or was the foundation a lie?
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If so, when to move on is if the other person can t or won t commit to honesty, and it might be time to end the relationship then.
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So again, if you re seeing this happening over and over again,
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Or maybe you just feel like, huh, something s off or something just doesn t seem like they re fully opening up to certain things.
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Confront this individual.
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It can be in a loving way.
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You don t have to be mean, but confront them and say, Hey, listen, I just feel like either you ve been lying or there were things you said in the beginning were not true.
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And maybe you were trying to protect yourself or maybe you were trying to put yourself in the best light or you wanted to try to protect me.
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I get it.
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It s not okay.
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But.
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You ve got to confront the person and say, hey, listen, if you won t commit to honesty from this moment moving forward, that is a sign that you should probably move on if they re not willing to do that.
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Because you just cannot have full trust in your heart and really feel safe if the other person is consistently lying.
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Number two sign of toxic relationship is gaslighting in relationships.
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And when should you move on if the other person isn t willing to change their ways or give up power over the relationship?
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You know, a lot of you have heard about gaslighting more and more these days, especially if you ve been listening or watching to the content.
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Here on the School of Greatness, we ve had some amazing experts come on, Dr. Romney being one of them, talking about what gaslighting is, how to manage gaslighting, how to navigate this, and how to be aware of it.
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And here is Dr. Romany on gaslighting from her interview with us on the School of Greatness.
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So what is gaslighting?
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Gaslighting is the denial of a person s reality and the taking apart of another person.
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so that they have completely not only given up on their reality, they ve given up on themselves.
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So let me say that in a little bit more of a clear way.
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Gaslighting is a grooming process.
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It s not a one-off, right?
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So let s say a day like today, we d set up our shoot and everything.
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And I would say, and we had our time, we were going to meet the date.
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And I said, you never said we re meeting on that day.
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And you d be like, what?
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And then you d go back to your email and say, no, it s right there, right?
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But for a minute, you might have doubted yourself.
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I don t have that much power to gaslight you because we don t really know each other.
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Maybe you trust me a little, but it would be enough to throw you off for a minute and
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Did I not send that email right? 
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And you catch yourself, okay?
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The reason it s called a grooming process is it happens over and over again.
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I never said that.
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I never did that.
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You re being too sensitive.
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Stop making such a big deal about that.
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You really aren t committed to this relationship.
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And they keep saying things to you that are not your reality.
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So what do people do when they re gaslighted initially?
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They defend themselves.
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No, no, no.
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You did.
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You really did.
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Like, you said that.
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I m not being too sensitive. 
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And now you re getting more and more worked up, right?
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And then they ll say things to you like, oh, yikes, somebody is a little bit crazy.
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Have you seen a therapist?
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So now what are they doing?
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Not only they doubted your reality and you re a little off balance, then boom.
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They close it by saying there s something wrong with oh, man, you start believing it.
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Oh, wow.
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Many people are gaslighted We ll start wondering maybe I m the narcissist.
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Maybe I have a mental illness.
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Maybe I need to get help There s something wrong with me and at that point the gaslighter is
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Fully controls this person.
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Oh my gosh, that s the process and so but the initially the gap the person who s being gaslighted Has some level of trust in the gaslighter.
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Maybe they re in a new relationship together.
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Maybe this is a family member Maybe it s a boss or a respected colleague.
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You got to have a little of that from the jump There has to be some skin in the game for someone to be able to gaslight someone and
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Then they re groomed.
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Now, let s say the first time someone gaslights, you say, uh, no, here s the email.
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This is the time you said we re meeting and don t ever do that to me again.
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The gaslighter is probably going to move on to a new target.
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They ll stop with you.
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Yeah.
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Cause yeah.
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So they ll say like, oh, it s not a fertile target.
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I m going to move on to another one.
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Early on when a person says you re being too sensitive, say, no, that s my emotion.
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Don t you dare play judge and jury on my emotions.
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I m sad right now.
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I m going to stick with that.
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That s what I m talking about.
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might be needing to have a conversation with yourself and reflecting, but also having a conversation with them.
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Okay?
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Again, these are the five signs of a toxic relationship, and there are more.
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But these are five things that I see that happen a lot with individuals, and I wanted you to be aware of them.
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So I want you to take inventory of where you currently are.
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You ve heard the five signs, but what do they mean to you personally?
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So let s take inventory of your relationships and your love life by asking courageous questions.
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So I want to give you this exercise really quick and take time to answer these three questions for yourself.
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If you ve got your notepad up on your phone, if you ve got notes and pen and paper, then write these down.
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Number one, which of the five signs of toxic relationships show up in your love life the most?
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Again, which of the five signs of toxic relationships show up in your love life the most?
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Write those down.
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And maybe you can just rank them like, okay, these three just checkmark of these top three or one of them.
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Just just take inventory.
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The next part of the exercise, what would you do?
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If
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if you had to change this pattern in the next 30 days?
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What would you do if you had to change this pattern in the next 30 days?
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Would you do some self-reflection?
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Would you do some healing?
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Would you do some processing?
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What would you do to take action?
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Would you create a boundary?
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Would you have a conversation?
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What will you do personally?
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It s not about what you re going to make someone else do, but what will you do to take accountability for your actions in your life?
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And the third part of the exercise is what is stopping you from changing this pattern?
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What is stopping you?
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What s the fear?
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What s the concern?
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What s the excuse?
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Write it all down.
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Reflect on this.
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It s important to be aware of this.
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And I m not saying these are easy things to overcome.
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This is a pattern that you have probably been doing for many, many years, or you ve repeated in relationships many, many times.
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It doesn t make you bad.
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It doesn t make you wrong.
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I just want you to be aware of this because I am committed to you.
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Having more peace, more harmony, more emotional agility, more abundance.
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That is my goal for you.
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I want you to thrive.
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I want you to flourish in your intimate relationship.
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I want you to fully love yourself, love your life.
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and love your partner s life and love your relationship together.
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It is a beautiful thing when you have struggled in relationships in your past and you finally get to a place where you feel at peace and harmony with who you are as a human being.
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And you create an intimate conscious relationship with someone where you feel like, wow, I m able to be my full self.
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I am seen and accepted and celebrated for who I am.
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I don t need to change to make someone else happy.
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It is an incredible gift to experience that, especially if you ve never experienced before.
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For me, I feel blessed and grateful daily to have created that experience.
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And it started by me going down the healing journey.
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It didn t happen by just saying, this person s bad.
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I m moving on from this relationship and I m going to jump into the next relationship.
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That s
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Typically, not the way this works.
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Typically, you ve got to do the work on yourself.
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Otherwise, you ll repeat the pattern from previous relationships.
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It ll just look different because it s a different face in front of you.
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But again, what is stopping you from changing this pattern?
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It s interesting because I went through, man, I went through three different relationships in a decade, three kind of longer term relationships.
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And after the last one ended, I really was like, oh man, okay, I ve been doing some of the healing work, but why do I keep repeating this pattern?
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Why do I keep entering relationships that aren t in alignment of my values, my vision, and my lifestyle?
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And I realized that a lot of this was still, I was choosing relationships based on my own personal wound.
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I was choosing based on a wound instead of based on my values, my vision, and my lifestyle.
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And any time I chose from a wound or choosing from a chemical sexual attraction or some type of some wound that caused that attraction to feel heightened, it wasn t an authentic attraction, it was a wounded attraction.
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And when I would
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When I would start a relationship from that space, it never worked out.
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It was always a struggle.
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It was always hard work.
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It was always a challenge.
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It was always a breakdown.
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It was always an argument, something like that.
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It just wasn t peaceful.
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And I reflected after the last relationship.
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And again, I don t make wrong any of the partners that I had in my past.
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I want the best for all of them.
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I hope they re all healthy and happy, and I hope they find love in their own way.
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So this is not a make wrong or a blame of previous relationships.
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This is a reflection of me, that what has changed by taking inventory of the patterns from my previous relationships.
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And I think that s what we all get to do, is take inventory
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on our individual patterns.
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And so when I started to do that, I remember thinking, oh man, these past three relationships, they all had things in common.
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Number one, I was attracted based on a wound.
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Number two, I thought I could help them overcome some challenge.
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So there was something inside of them that they didn t believe in themselves fully.
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And I was like, man, you re talented.
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You re gifted.
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You ve got this masterpiece inside of you.
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Why don t you see it?
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So I wanted to show them that they were talented, that they were gifted, and I wanted them to believe it, but they didn t believe it themselves.
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So no matter how much of me trying to convince them.
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of their gifts, they weren t able to see themselves gifted.
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They had some type of insecurity and doubts that were holding them back.
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And you can t enter a relationship trying to change someone from seeing something that they re not seeing.
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You could try to inspire them through your way of being.
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You could be a powerful force for good.
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You can show up with your habits and hope they rub off on people.
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But if they don t have that right now,
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They ve got to be the ones to decide they want to make that shift or that transformation or that change.
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They ve got to be ready for it.
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So you can t jump in there and say, oh, but you could be great.
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You could be amazing if someone s not ready for that in an intimate relationship.
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And so that was one thing that I realized.
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And also, again, I didn t enter relationships asking the challenging questions up front.
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it was more fun and exciting and just kind of like, not surface level, but I would say it d be more like, I don t know, it s hard to explain it fully here, but it was more, it was less from a spiritual foundation, let s say that.
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And so when I reflected on this, I was able to actually take inventory of the previous three relationships I was in.
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I was like, oh man, they all had this pattern that I chose from.
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And I realized, okay, I m going to do the opposite of this pattern moving forward.
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I m going to do the opposite of all these patterns moving forward.
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And it s been an incredible journey and experience just having that awareness.
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And you ve got to have the courage.
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You know, if you re used to doing something one way, doing it another way is scary.
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It s hard.
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It s challenging.
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What if the person doesn t accept me?
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What if there was more arguments?
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What if there s more challenge?
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What if there s more stress?
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Well, if that s the case, then that s probably not the right match for you.
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But when I led with my values, my vision, my lifestyle, and I said, this is who I ve been, this is who I am, this is who I m going to be in relationships.
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And I said, and I m not going to change this.
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I m going to evolve.
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I m going to grow.
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I m going to transform, but I m not going to change who I am to make one person happy.
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I m not going to change my values, my vision of my lifestyle for one person to be happy.
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Because if you re not happy with me.
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We re not the right match.
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I should fully accept who you are.
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I should fully be okay with your past and not blame you, not judge you, not make you wrong for that.
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And I should fully accept based on what you tell me the truth is for what you want in your values, your vision, and your life for the future.
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If I m not in alignment with that,
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then we are probably not the right match.
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Now it doesn t mean everything has to be perfect, but if we re not in alignment on these core fundamental things, then it just might mean we may not be the right fit.
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And that s okay.
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That s okay.
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You can still like someone and have
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with them and connect with them and may not be a life partner.
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You might just have a love story for a few weeks but it may not be the right life partner for you and that s okay.
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So it s been an amazing thing because when I shifted that everything in my life started to shift.
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I ve been in a beautiful conscious
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almost two year relationship now with Martha, and it has been a game changer because we both accepted the other person for who they were at their core.
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I don t try to change her.
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She doesn t try to change me.
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However, we both have agreements, conscious agreements, and boundaries that we ve created to support us in thriving in our relationship.
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And it has been the most healing, game-changing experience I ve ever felt in my life.
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I feel so much peace because of that.
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Now, healing unhealthy relationship patterns, again, they can be extremely scary because you re going out into the unknown.
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But pursuing greatness in your relationships is always worth it.
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And I can tell you, after being in relationships where, again, I don t blame anyone that I was with, but me choosing relationships not based on values, vision, and lifestyle, and then feeling stuck or trapped or not fully accepted in these relationships,
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to now feeling peace, it is a game changer.
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I have so much more energy to pursue my mission, because I m not trying to manage or fix stressful relationships that I was once in.
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And I take full responsibility for all of that.
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An idea that I wanted to share with you is this quote from my book.
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It says, it will mean giving it your all, taking courageous action, but then letting go of the results.
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The results may not be what you expect them to be.
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They may be better.
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Or they may just be different.
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And that s okay.
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I love this message within The Greatness Mindset, my recent book.
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If you ve already got a copy, then maybe you ve seen that quote in there.
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It s on page 12 of The Greatness Mindset.
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But again, you ve got to be willing to take courageous action.
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You ve got to be willing to say, man, I m going to lean into my values, my vision, and my lifestyle.
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I m going to be fully in ownership of my communication with the people that I m dating or hanging out with or exploring a relationship with.
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and they may not all accept or like me, and that s okay.
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It s gonna be scary.
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People may say, oh, you re not the right fit for me.
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That s exciting, that should excite you.
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Don t shift or conform who you are to try to get people to like you or be pleased by you.
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That s when you re gonna fall into a trap later on.
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It may be fun and exciting for six months, but then you realize you re resentful because the person doesn t fully accept you.
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So be as honest as you can about who you are, your values, your vision, your life, your dreams, your goals.
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And if they accept you or not, make sure you take that courageous action.
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And you got to be taking that action in healing your past as well.
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If you can create peace with your past, I m telling you your present and your future will be abundant.
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and it will be joyful.
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But you ve got to be willing to take that courageous action for yourself.
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Otherwise, you ll keep repeating that pattern you ve always been in.
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So I want to share more about setting healthy boundaries and what I like to call the granting yourself permission exercise.
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So one of the things that has really supported me in my current relationship with Martha and for her is for both of us setting healthy boundaries.
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This is a beautiful thing in conscious relationships.
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Unconscious relationships has uncommunicated expectations based on whatever your past, your model of your parents, what you did in previous relationships.
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Expecting someone else to live up to a certain role within a relationship
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without you communicating it is kind of crazy.
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And we ve probably all done it.
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So this is not a blame or make wrong.
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It s just not the way that conscious relationships work.
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So in setting healthy boundaries, they are the foundation of healthy relationships and inner peace.
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If you want to feel peace, if you want to feel like your soul is living in a beautiful garden,
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is living in a pond with lily pods and with a trickling waterfall and with a jungle of nature and sounds and harmony all around you.
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That is creating healthy boundaries and communicating to have inner peace.
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We can t just create them.
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We need to communicate our boundaries.
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We need to make sure that the people in our lives are clear about the boundaries that we have and we express ourselves the moment that they are crossed.
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It doesn t mean you have to
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get loud and scream and cry and yell when someone crosses a boundary, they may be completely unaware of your boundaries.
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So when it comes up for you, just say, okay.
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Whew.
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All right.
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I m feeling something inside.
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I don t really like this.
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So let me just communicate it.
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Let me communicate it calmly, like an adult and communicate.
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Hey, you know, this is not about you.
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This is about something that I prefer and that I like.
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And my request is that we don t do this anymore.
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My request is that we don t have these conversations late at night, that we do them during the day when we both have energy.
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My request is that
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You know, I get my alone time when I need it and you re okay with it and you re not worried or concerned about it.
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My request is this again, the more you communicate from a conscious loving way.
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the better the relationship will be.
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We must be clear with the people we love about our boundaries and express ourselves the moment they re across.
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You know, it s interesting, when I was starting my current relationship with Martha, we both talked about this.
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We both talked about boundaries and the power of them.
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And one of the things that has allowed us to feel such a sense of peace is that when each of us felt like, huh, that didn t feel too good, or I don t really like that stuff, communication, or I need more space here and there, we just talked about it openly, calmly, lovingly.
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And one of the things that really resonates for me, and I think resonates for her, is when we talk about boundaries,
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It s not looked at as like a bad thing, like, oh, you did this thing and it doesn t make me feel good.
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The way we communicated is, oh my gosh, I love our relationship.
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You do such a great job of just making me feel seen and supported and accepted.
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And I love how you just show up in these ways.
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And also I d like to make a request.
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You know, for whatever reason, I just, I like my alone time in the mornings or, you know, I just want to have more kind of relaxation time at nights.
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Um, so my request is this.
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And when you structure the boundary setting conversation with appreciation, number one, I m grateful for you because of this, this, and this.
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And then you say, you know, just something I want to do for, for me is really create, you know, more boundaries in this area for whatever reason.
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It s just.
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I just struggle in this and I want to improve it.
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But in the meantime, my goal is that we create this type of boundary.
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And it really helped me continue to dive into our relationship, to show up for you more fully, being more present.
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And I ll feel a lot better if we can create this boundary.
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And this is my request.
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I think when we make requests based on appreciation, not you did this thing and it really hurt me and upset me and my boundary is this.
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The other person is going to be on guard.
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They re going to be on defense mode.
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They re going to feel like, man, they re ungrateful for all that I do for them.
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And they re just creating this boundary and getting mad at me.
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That is not a conscious way of communication.
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So again, when you re creating boundaries, do your best to communicate from a conscious standpoint.
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Again, lead with gratitude, lead with appreciation, lead with what you love about the relationship.
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And then you can add in the boundary that you re requesting to create and see if the person is okay with it.
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Hey, is this boundary work for you?
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And if not, what can we do that we both feel good in this situation moving forward.
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So we both don t feel.
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So we both feel at ease.
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We feel we understand each other.
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We trust, we accept, we love one another.
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That s really the key to this.
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And again, these five signs of toxic relationship.
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One, consistently lying or having a foundational process of mistrust.
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Number two, gaslighting in relationships.
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And make sure to check out the resource section in the description below this video or audio podcast so you can see more about this.
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Number three, jealousy and possessiveness.
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Again, it might seem cute in the first few months of a relationship, but typically those things don t diminish.
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They only get stronger.
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And that is a big red flag of a toxic relationship.
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Number four, no self-care allowed.
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If you don t want your partner to feel their best
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self, or take time for self, or you don t feel like you can do that, it s time to have a conversation.
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Number five, you want to rescue and save them.
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Again, loving someone who s struggling isn t a bad thing, but it can get really toxic if that s all you re trying to do, or that s all they re trying to do for you.
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So again, I hope you guys got value from this and please let me know in the comments below on YouTube or send me a message over on Instagram and tag me.
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What the biggest takeaway from this episode was for you and make sure to share it with a friend.
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I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
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And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as add free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on apple podcast.
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And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.