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Something that makes me crazy is when people say, well, I had this career before, but it was a waste.
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And that s where the perspective shift comes, that it s not a waste, that everything you ve done has built you to where you are now.
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This is She Pivots, the podcast where we explore the inspiring pivots women have made and dig deeper into the personal reasons behind them.
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Join me, Emily Tish Sussman, every Wednesday on She Pivots.
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Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukhia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry.
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We re going to be talking with some of my best friends.
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I didn t know we were going to go there.
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People that I admire.
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When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what s going on.
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Authors of books that have changed my life.
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Now you re talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy.
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Never forget, it s OK to cry as long as you make it a really good one.
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Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhi Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay.
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And me, Simone Boyce.
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Every weekday, we re bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.
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I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side.
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You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share.
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Listen to The Bright Side on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.
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We think that we re going to be happy by getting a person, but you ll never be happy by getting a person that doesn t meet your needs.
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It doesn t matter how impressive you think they are.
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That s the danger, right?
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That s the trap people fall into.
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I ve fallen into it.
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One of the world s leading dating and relationship coach.
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He has helped millions of people find love, Matthew Hussey.
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We write people off at lightning speed.
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They may have a wisdom that you never picked up on.
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The reason so many people never reach the point of real relationship is because...
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Hey everyone, I ve got some huge news to share with you.
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In the last 90 days, 79.4% of our audience came from viewers and listeners that are not subscribed to this channel.
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There s research that shows that if you want to create a habit, make it easy to access.
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By hitting the subscribe button, you re creating a habit of learning how to be happier, healthier, and more healed.
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Subscribe right now.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
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Whether it s your relationships, your work life, or everything in between, I m glad that I get to sit down and talk with fascinating people who are sharing vulnerable journeys, powerful insights, and great habits.
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If you ve been struggling in your love life, this episode is for you.
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If you ve been going through a tough breakup, if you ve been struggling with dating, this episode is for you.
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And if you re someone who s just trying to understand how to unlock love within yourself, love in every interaction, and create a space where each and every one of your relationships are fulfilling and full of harmony, this episode is for you.
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I m sitting down with one of my great friends and amazing thought leaders, Matthew Hussey, New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and coach specializing in confidence and relationship intelligence.
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Matthew is the host of the podcast Love Life with Matthew Hussey that I ve got the honor of being a guest on, so check that episode out.
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And over the past 15 years, Matthew s proven approach has inspired millions through authentic, insightful, and practical advice that not only enables them to find love, but also feel confident in control of their own happiness.
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Today we re talking about his new book, Love Life.
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If you don t have this book, make sure you go and grab it right now.
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How to raise your standards, find your person, and live happily no matter what.
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Please welcome to the show the author of Love Life, Matthew Hussey.
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Matthew, what s up, man?
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It s so good to see you.
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So good to see you.
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I missed you.
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It s been a while.
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I know, I know.
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We find it hard to catch each other.
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One of us is always traveling.
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I know, but it s so nice to be together, man.
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I ve been excited about this conversation, man.
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Me too, me too.
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Last time you were on, people absolutely loved it.
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And when I was reading through your book, I was blown away because I know that you ve put five years of work into this.
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This has been a real labor of love.
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And
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We all know how hard it is to write books and how much effort it takes and when i saw the amount of honesty the amount of self awareness the amount of.
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Open this that you approach this book with i think anyone who reads it.
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Is going to walk away feeling like they feel heard they feel seen and they actually know.
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how to be honest and open with themselves through the journey of love, which is what you ve done.
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That s how I feel anyway.
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So I m really excited to be able to read it.
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And I ve got so many questions for you.
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So I m going to dive right in.
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Yeah, do it, man.
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Yeah.
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Awesome.
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So I want to start with this idea because everyone that we know since we re young wants to fall in love.
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And we ve all heard so much advice on love that has somehow become our version of what love is.
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We ve all seen so many love stories, whether it was a bad love story with our parents, whether it was a good love story with our uncles and aunts, whether it was our older brother or older sister, whoever it was.
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Where did your earliest ideas of love come from and which ones do you still agree with and which ones do you disagree with?
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I suppose on some level, some of them must have come from my upbringing.
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You know, my mum
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talking about, you know, the kind of giddiness that she felt for my dad when they first met and, you know, the attraction.
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I m sure so much of it was songs and movies.
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I suppose the thing that I think about now is
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Like what I value today is different, I think, than what I might have valued at 21.
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I still, you know, I very much value attraction and chemistry because I think it s going to be a long road if you re in a relationship that doesn t have those things.
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But
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the things that became kind of non-negotiables for me changed.
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Like finding someone who brings me peace and being in a relationship that felt peaceful.
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That was something that made its entrance later in my life.
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And I paid the price for it not making its entrance sooner.
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You know, I,
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was in multiple relationships that really robbed me of my peace.
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And so I think that probably early on, I was not, I wasn t seeking peace.
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I was seeking just the ride, the, you know, the experience of feeling these incredible feelings for somebody and, and also perhaps being
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heroic to that person.
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I think that was probably an early idea that, you know, I was the, I, there had to be something heroic about the way that I showed up or presented myself.
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And I think that for a long time that
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that prevented me from ever really being seen.
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You know, if you d have asked me at 25, are you vulnerable?
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I would have been like, yeah, I wouldn t have said no.
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I wasn t self-aware about it, but like, there was a lot that I never really brought forward about myself.
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I think that we are very good at like,
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You know, we all tell the hero s journey of our life and we love that, right?
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Cause it s a kind of here s where I was and here s where I am now.
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You know, whenever you hear like a rags to riches story, it s back then I was in a bad spot.
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Now I m in an amazing spot.
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And I remember I used to tell stories like that in my life.
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I could be dating and telling stories like that of where I d come from and where I am now.
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There was nothing really vulnerable about those stories.
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There was still the story of, like, how I m awesome.
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Cause there s a hero s journey, you know, but it s a lot harder to be like, here s what I m struggling with right now.
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Or that thing that you just did just made me really jealous and insecure.
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Or, you know, I m feeling emasculated right now.
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Like those things, my God, like that, to bring that stuff forward for me was, I didn t realize how hard it was and how terrified I must have been.
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of doing that and how deeply unworthy I felt to be able to really show someone who I was and still feel like I d be loved afterwards.
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I d get like a vulnerability hangover at the end of, and by the way, sometimes it did backfire.
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I remember when I was trying on the whole vulnerability thing, I remember saying to someone,
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about a moment in an evening that had made me insecure.
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I remember talking about, like, I didn t want to, but I could tell I was being passive aggressive and cold.
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when the walls had gone up.
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And so I was like, I m not being, that s the hard place to be, right?
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When you know you re not being your normal, fun, loving, happy self, but you re also not being honest about what you re feeling.
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So you re just in this weird no man s land of like being unpleasant to be around.
1
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And I realized like this, I can t hide how I m feeling right now.
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And instead of like gaslighting this person that I m fine and I m not, let me just share something that made me insecure.
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And it really backfired.
1
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Like this person said to me, I find that this is the literal words that were said to me was I find that really unattractive.
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And it crushed me because I thought I was like in my head, I was like, I m never doing that again.
1
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I remember living with my friend at the time and I walked to his room and I was like, I can t believe what just happened.
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Like, I m such an idiot.
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And I didn t say, I didn t say, wow, that was really lacking in compassion from her side.
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That was like the depths of my own, like, lack of compassion, self-compassion was that instead of saying, wow, that was a really, that was kind of a mean response, lacking compassion.
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Instead I went,
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I m such an idiot.
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I can t believe I said that out loud.
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Like, why did I reveal that weakness?
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And it, it took me a little while to recover from that because it kind of,
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it reinforced, that was the dangerous part, is it reinforced this idea that I needed to be heroic at all times and not to have those weaknesses.
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And those parts of me were contemptible if people knew about them.
1
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So that was a big thing for me, I think, thinking I had to be a hero all the time and not realizing that a real relationship is so much more interesting than that.
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Wow, man, so powerful.
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So many things to unpack.
1
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So many things to unpack.
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One of the things I want to start with is what is the difference between a peaceful relationship and a boring relationship?
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Because I think that... Great question.
1
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That s a great question.
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Because I think a lot of people think of peaceful as boring when we re not emotionally mature.
1
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So I can relate to what you re saying where you actually want a relationship that s kind of like chaotic and up and down and passionate, and then we love each other, we hate each other, you know, there s that kind of energy, there s something.
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And we kind of do that in a lot of our lives.
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And by the way, we do that even in marriage and relationships where we can often invent drama
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because it s too peaceful.
1
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And I ve had friends who ve reached out to me and said, Jay, I keep creating drama in my life because that s what I m used to.
1
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And I don t know what to do with this guy or this girl because they re actually peaceful.
1
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So people are scared that peaceful means boring, but you ve just said you d like a peaceful relationship.
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I know you re not a boring guy.
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So what s the difference?
1
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So when you was just saying that, I thought to myself, there are days where I m on time for something and I will,
1
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kind of go and do one more thing before the meeting that makes me late.
1
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So that I have to like make a game of getting in the car and like finding a way to like, how can I still like, oh, the GPS says I m going to be there in two minutes before, but like shaving off a minute, like
1
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I was on time.
1
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Why did I do the one more?
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Nothing was going to go wrong if I didn t do that one more thing.
1
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Why did I do one more thing that made me late?
1
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And I had to realize at a certain point that that was my nervous system.
1
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you know, I grew up around, like, my dad was always late for everything.
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I learned that from him.
1
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I used to hate it, by the way, but like, I, I also then adopted it.
1
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I m not that way anymore in my life, but like it, I realized, like, I have an addiction to this feeling, this like mini drama of, am I going to get there on time?
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which creates this little mini drama in my day for like 10 minutes.
1
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It s like an adrenaline rush.
1
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I m like, you know, and it s a horrible feeling really.
1
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It doesn t feel good.
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It feels like stressful and anxiety inducing.
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And now I m going to come across as rude and disrespectful as someone s time.
1
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And I m like stressed and, but it s like a, my body is used to that.
1
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I m not used to like getting somewhere on time and like have 10 minutes to just chill.
1
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And like, it s,
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that s a new feeling that can feel boring.
1
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So in terms of a relation, I think we do it everywhere in our lives.
1
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In terms of a relationship, I knew when I met my wife, Audrey, that I had found peace that wasn t by any means boring because I felt at home.
1
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I didn t, you know, I didn t just feel safe.
1
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We can feel safe and very bored, right?
1
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We can feel like I m with someone who is very non-threatening.
1
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I feel like I, you know, this person s not going to leave me.
1
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I feel like I m very safe in this situation, but I don t really like, this doesn t feel like my person.
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I just feel safe.
1
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And when you haven t felt safe for a long time, sometimes that s a very lovely feeling on its own, just to feel like I m no longer in a abusive relationship, or I m no longer in a relationship with someone that makes me second guess myself all the time, or feels like they re gonna leave me at any moment.
1
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But eventually, we will get bored in a situation where the only thing that s presenting as a positive thing is the safety we feel.
1
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But in this relationship, I felt at home.
1
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And I felt like I felt more seen than I d ever felt before.
1
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I really was astonished to the extent to which this person got me and that we seemed to get each other.
1
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And the first night we met, we spoke for eight hours straight.
1
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literally, like everyone else was like partying and doing that.
1
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And we were just, we talked for eight hours the first night we met that there was an attraction there that made us talk to each other.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s not like we started talking to each other on the, in the first second, because we knew we were such great conversationalists.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like we started talking because there was a, there was a, an attraction, but
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But then it felt easy.
1
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It felt like home somehow.
1
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It took me a minute to realize that, by the way, I m not, this wasn t a love at first sight story of like, and then everything was smooth sailing, but it, it did.
1
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It took me a while to realize.
1
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Oh, this is like, this is, this feels like home.
1
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I m more of myself around this person.
1
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And I think that s a beautiful thing to find is someone who makes you more of yourself.
1
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And of course, I think it, you know, you can t, if someone says to me, I ve gotten zero sexual attraction to this person, that s a problem.
1
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That s a genuine problem.
1
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you have to have some form of attraction to the person you re with.
1
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Now, by the way, does it need to be the greatest attraction you ve ever felt for anyone in your life?
1
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That trips a lot of people up.
1
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Because I always say, don t comparison shop for chemistry.
1
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It s one of the things I talk about in the book, because I think we re always comparing whatever is in front of us with the peak of our chemistry that we ve had with someone that we can t seem to get over.
1
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but you only have to take a look at what are the situations that we find hard to get over?
1
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Like what was that peak of chemistry and attraction?
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s often in situations that were entirely unsustainable.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s, you know, you go, you have a holiday romance with someone and you, oh God, like if I, I d love to feel that animal attraction for someone who was good for me and who I had a long-term relationship with.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, well, how long did you know that person?
1
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Two weeks?
1
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they didn t have to do very much.
1
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Like it s easy to create the conditions for chemistry in that kind of a situation.
1
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The same is true of people who have a three month fling with someone where there s like, it becomes more interesting because it s flaming really hot and then it disappears.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, I had a woman who I coached who said,
1
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You know, this person was the one with this amazing three month thing.
1
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And I said, what happened?
1
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And she was like, well, he went traveling and he said he didn t want to continue the relationship.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for me,
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me, that s like literal fireworks.
2
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You know, they, fireworks, we look at them and they re really exciting and we get, we re like, ah, isn t this magical?
2
SPEAKER_02
And you look at those fireworks, but if those fireworks carried on for three hours, you d be like, this is, I want to go home now.
2
SPEAKER_02
You would be bored, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
For fireworks to be exciting, they have to end.
2
SPEAKER_02
So we have to be very careful about comparing the like slow burn energy of a real relationship with like that fast twitch muscle of a short term encounter or an affair that is naturally exciting because it s an affair.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s like, you know, this.
2
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Mysterious.
2
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Yeah.
2
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So I, I, I don t think you, you should absolutely have chemistry, but, um,
2
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We have to be really careful with comparing chemistry with previous chemistry, because that chemistry may not have lasted either if you d actually got what you wanted.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and it makes so much sense, the analogy you painted of the fireworks is a brilliant one, because a real relationship is one that you don t want to end, and the chemistry-based relationship is one that has to end, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It has to come to an end.
2
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and for it to feel meaningful.
2
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And a real relationship, you never want to end, and that s why it feels meaningful.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s where we re kind of stuck in between.
2
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And the thing I hear the most, and I asked my audience and my team a lot of questions before this interview because I know
2
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a lot of my audiences dating trying to figure it out and one of the biggest things which we touched on here but i want to ask you about is that people find it overwhelming with the number of options they have today and i ve spoken to friends who are like well this guy s great but
2
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maybe there s someone greater, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And we re constantly living in this, they re good, but maybe they re 50%, and maybe there s a 51, and then maybe there s a 79, and maybe there s a 99, because I can see someone else over there has a 99.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so we keep second-guessing even the person in front of us, even if they are fulfilling our needs because of the overwhelming number of options.
2
SPEAKER_01
Hey everyone, it s Jay here.
2
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My wife and I have had so much fun creating our own sparkling tea, Juni, and I ve got big news for you.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s at Target, and we d love your support.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you can go out, grab a Juni, you ll be adding adaptogens and nootropics into your life with mood-boosting properties aimed at promoting a balanced and happy mind.
2
SPEAKER_01
Through our commitment to our wellness journey and striving to fuel our bodies with the healthiest ingredients, it s been our purpose to make healthy choices accessible for all.
2
SPEAKER_01
Which is why Juni is now on shelves at Target.
2
SPEAKER_01
So head to our store locator at drinkjuni.com and find Juni at a Target near you.
2
SPEAKER_01
So how, when you said you felt at home and, you know, I think that s what people want to feel.
2
SPEAKER_01
They want to feel at home.
2
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They want to feel more than safe.
2
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But how do we know, or what have been the best signs and indicators that people can look out for that they re actually making things harder for themselves by wishing, hoping, wanting someone else?
2
SPEAKER_01
Or is that a sign that you re not with the right person, that you feel that there is someone who has more?
2
SPEAKER_02
It s such a tough question because I think it s,
2
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sometimes we re wanting something else because there s, you know, the person that s in front of us isn t compelling enough.
2
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There really is something lacking in that relationship.
2
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But I do think we have to ask ourselves what, what are the things that I really must have for an amazing relationship?
2
SPEAKER_02
Like I, for me, when I, when I was going to ask Audrey to marry me, I literally called up a friend and told him,
2
SPEAKER_02
And he was like, you know, why are you doing that?
2
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I m just curious.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like what he was, it was almost like his way of testing whether I was ready or not, you know, whether I was just in some crazy, like infatuation or, and I said, you know, I m, I m ready to build something in my life.
2
SPEAKER_02
I feel like.
2
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for me, my, my dating life was just like hitting reset all the time.
2
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And, and it was honestly at a certain point making me anxious, like dating and being with different people.
2
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And it just didn t, you know, there was a time in my life where that was really exciting.
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And then it started to just go the other way.
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And I, and I had to listen to that and go, this isn t,
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this isn t going to work.
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Like I, this isn t where it s at.
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This isn t making me happy.
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This isn t bringing me peace.
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Um, the way that I was dating was, it had almost like an addictive quality to it that was really unhealthy.
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And I thought this isn t going to be a good look 10 years from now.
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It s not going to make me feel good.
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It s not going to bring me more peace.
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which is a different, by the way, that doesn t mean that you know how to give something up.
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When you have those realizations, you might realize eating healthier would be better for you, but it doesn t mean that you ve trained yourself to be able to do that.
2
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But I got to a point where I said, I want to build something now.
2
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And in with Audrey, I thought I,
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In my head, I was like, I ll never find a better builder.
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And I said that to him, like, I ll never find a better builder.
2
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This is the builder for me.
2
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Like, we re gonna be able to do such amazing things together and the life we ll have and the, you know, her level of empathy and compassion and, you know, the person that I am with this person, it, you know, the way she makes me feel like that s truly special.
2
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And I m not a,
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you know, there s the one out there kind of a person.
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I ve never been that way.
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If you look, anyone looks back through my videos and you know this, cause we ve spoken about it back when I was single, you know, I ve never been a person who believes in the idea of the one.
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So I think that it s finding someone that we ve, you know, we look at what s really important to us,
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Not what s important on an egoic level, because I think a lot of the things that make us question whether this person is right for us are ego-based.
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I don t think they re based on how we feel around this person.
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We worry, is this the kind of person my friends think that I should be with?
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Do they look the part?
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Are they my normal type?
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Do they make the right amount of money?
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Yeah.
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Like is this, does, has this person come in the package that I had always told myself they would come in and those things can be really, really limiting and they can have us like constantly trying to optimize for some.
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version of something that we think we re supposed to be with, which is a very dangerous way to go about finding love.
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You can t optimize for human beings.
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You can optimize for a lot in life, but you re dealing with people.
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By the way, even if you let go of this person, you re going to find someone else who s also imperfect and they might
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OK, this person is, you know, scores a seven in this area and they score a nine.
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But guess what?
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They score a three in this other area that you didn t even know.
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was great in this relationship because you took for granted how amazing that person was in that way.
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Like it, it s, it s very dangerous to optimize in that way in our love life.
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And I I ve come to really believe in life that if you find a connection that has all the right raw materials,
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and you both have the same level of commitment, then you can build something extraordinary together.
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And actually the extraordinary is the thing you sculpt together.
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It s no different from a career.
2
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You know, neither you nor I started by doing our dream version of this.
2
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It s evolved and evolved and evolved and evolved.
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And every year you sculpt it a little closer to your ideal way of doing it all.
2
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And along the way you do a lot of things that you don t necessarily, you re like, Oh my God, I couldn t do this for a lifetime.
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And this part I thought I would enjoy and I didn t enjoy it nearly as much as I thought I would.
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I m going to stop doing that.
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And you, you, you know, you, you sculpt it, like dream careers are sculpted.
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They re not found.
2
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And I think that that s true of relationships as well.
2
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Like I m more grateful for my relationship with Audrey, the more time goes on because we keep sculpting it into something that s better and better.
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What that requires, which is really hard for a lot of us, myself included for many years.
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And this was one of the things that I think really hurt me
2
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was I got myself into an incredibly indecisive state where I was constantly second guessing myself.
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And I, you know, when we talk, when we, when we think of what s our, like, what are we worried about in our love life for so many of us, it s that we re going to settle.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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I m going to settle for the wrong person.
2
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Well, I think we can actually start to reclaim the language of settling and make it into a very positive thing.
3
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But what if it wasn t settling for, what if you decided to settle on?
3
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Because when you settle on someone, there s a power to that.
3
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It s like you resolve to say, I m going to settle on this.
3
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It s like people crossing a country when a country is, you know, it s like people crossing America and deciding when to stop.
3
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You re like, where, at what point did the early settlers say this, this is good enough.
3
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I don t need to keep going.
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Like I ve found an amazing place.
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And when you find that place, you go, I could live here.
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Then you settle on it.
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And it s only by settling on it that you can make it great.
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It s only by putting your attention on it like a laser that you can see what it becomes.
3
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And.
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I don t think that I ever really settled on anything in my love life in a way that gave it a chance to see what it could really become.
3
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And in this situation, I really gave myself that chance by saying, I m going to.
3
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I m going to go all in on this, but she was smart because she also saw that Audrey is ridiculously perceptive and in tune with people.
3
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And she saw in me early on, like, Oh, this is a pattern for him.
3
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And that doubt and that, what do I want?
3
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You know, is this right?
3
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And she saw that early on.
3
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And one of the things that she did was she
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she called me out firstly and she was like, look, if, if you re, I m willing to like really see what this could be.
3
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And you don t seem to be in that place where you re like actually going all in and seeing what it could be.
3
SPEAKER_00
She said, so I don t want to continue if you re not going all in, because I, I m not like, I m not here for someone, half of someone s energy.
3
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And she, and the way she phrased it was amazing because she said to me, look, that doesn t mean like six months from now we could break up.
3
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You might decide this is wrong for you.
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I might decide it s wrong for me.
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And no one s the villain if that happens.
3
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But if you re not willing to go all in right now to at least see what it could be and give it your real effort, then this has to end here for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what was, for me, what was amazing about that is that it lowered the stakes for me, especially when she said, because I felt like
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you know, in the past I had hurt, well, I didn t feel like I had hurt people and I had been the villain.
3
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And I was like, I can t do this anymore.
3
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Cause I also suffer from ridiculous guilt.
3
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So I was like, I can t do this again.
3
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I can t, I was like avoidant because I was like, I don t want to get close enough to anyone to hurt someone.
3
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If I hurt someone, I m going to feel sick and that s going to haunt me.
3
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And then, you know, I m just making myself miserable and them.
3
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And so I had all this like stuff.
3
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And when she was like,
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you re not if six months from now you decide this isn t for you that s okay you re allowed to do that that lowered the stakes for me but by also demanding as a standard and that s what so much of this book is about how to raise your standards and what that looks like in practice because i think the reason so many people never reach the point of real relationship is because they don t have
3
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standards for what they expect and how to communicate and know how to communicate those standards.
3
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But because she had a standard that she lowered the stakes, but she also had a high standard that said, this is the price of entry for continuing.
3
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That like allowed me to fully invest.
3
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And when I fully invested,
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that thing started to actually realize its potential and to, we got to see what it actually was when I was showing up fully and she was showing up fully.
3
SPEAKER_00
Um, so I, I sympathize with anyone who is struggling with
3
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those decisions in their love life.
3
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I don t judge anyone for it because I struggled in my love life with, I wrote a whole chapter of the book called never satisfied.
3
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Cause I related to that idea that, you know, you find someone who you chase, who feels exciting to you, but they break your heart, you know, or you go for someone who feels safe and
3
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you re bored, you re doubting yourself, you re doubting whether this is the right person.
3
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And you just sort of, you know, cycle between those two different extremes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it became the, not just a goal for me to help other people, it became a goal for myself to go, I need to figure out how to be happy here because otherwise I m going to constantly oscillate between feeling suffering because I m chasing someone who doesn t want me
3
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or being with someone where I feel like I m not fully there and that s not fair to them and it s not fair to myself.
3
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Like I need to figure out a way to be happy here.
3
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So, so much of this book is about finding that peace and that happiness that I feel really, really lucky to have been able to find in my own life because it s, you know, I wrote this book single, heartbroken,
3
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then dating, then, you know, falling in love.
3
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And then I, the last edit I did, you know, for two days on my honeymoon, like that was a crazy arc for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it wasn t something that was created by a married person who was just like, here s all this answers.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like, some of these chapters I wrote in the worst possible pain of my life.
3
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You know, you talked about standards then obviously that s such a big part of what you felt with Audrey in that moment.
3
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I think what scares us about setting standards is that we think it s going to scare someone away.
3
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Audrey saying that to you requires so much self-worth in her saying, I may lose this guy if I say this, but I know that s where I m at.
3
SPEAKER_01
You being vulnerable with that person many years ago saying, I m going to open up about my life and them saying, that s not very attractive.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t find that attractive.
3
SPEAKER_01
That was you again, trying to demonstrate and be vulnerable
3
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But because you were with someone who wasn t emotionally compassionate enough to receive that, and because you didn t have enough self-worth, you made it a weakness in yourself.
3
SPEAKER_01
It sounds like when Audrey said that to you, if you would have said, well, I m not in, she would have been like, okay, cool, we re not in then, it s not happening.
3
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t sound like she would have been like, oh my God, he doesn t like me, I m not good enough, because she had a certain standard.
3
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And that s what standards, whereas when you were trying to be vulnerable, it was like trying to be vulnerable, but it wasn t a standard yet.
3
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Well, I would say, no, it wasn t a standard.
3
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Tactics are different from standards.
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That s what I was trying to hear.
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Not that when I was being vulnerable, that was a tactic.
3
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No, I didn t think it was a tactic.
3
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But like, we do constantly employ faux standards that aren t really standards.
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They re just a tactic.
3
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So it s like, I m not going to text this person back so that I generate interest.
3
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And then if it doesn t generate interest three days later, we text them anyway.
3
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That s because it wasn t a standard, it was a tactic.
3
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When something, a tactic we do to try and get a result, and if it doesn t work, we go for a different tactic.
3
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A standard is who we are.
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And we don t change it.
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Like if my standard for being open and vulnerable was what I did in that moment with that person, I wouldn t have stopped doing that just because I didn t get the result that I wanted.
3
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which was connection, I would have said, well, this is how I want to be.
3
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And come to think of it, I would have said if I was in a better place, one of my greatest standards is to find someone who really accepts me.
3
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And if this person doesn t accept me, then my standard is going to be that, well, maybe this relationship isn t for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I wanna be this vulnerable in a relationship.
3
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I wanna be able to share from the heart both the good and the bad and my flaws and my insecurities.
3
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And if I m not accepted, then okay, maybe it s not right.
3
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But instead what I did was I went down a very masochistic rabbit hole of going, I m not good enough.
3
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It s just been proven.
3
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I m never gonna reveal those weaknesses again.
3
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And I stayed.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right?
3
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So you re right about Audrey, because I guarantee you, if I had not then said, all right, I m going to show up differently.
3
SPEAKER_00
She would have been out of there.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the big difference is we have to make the, the goal, our happiness, not a person.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, we think that we re going to be happy by getting a person, but you ll never be happy by getting a person that doesn t meet your needs.
3
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t matter how impressive you think they are.
3
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t, that s the, that s the danger, right?
3
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That s the trap that people fall into.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve fallen into it.
3
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Someone s particularly exciting, impressive, charismatic, gorgeous.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s something there s, they have all these things that you go, this makes them a very valuable person.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then you say, well, my needs don t really matter anymore.
3
SPEAKER_00
The only thing that matters is I can get this person.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because we think if I...
4
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I can get this person, then I ll be worthy and I ll be happy and it will all work out.
4
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But everyone out there, you know, most people out there have been in a relationship where they thought it would be heaven to get someone.
4
SPEAKER_02
and then they experienced what the relationship was actually like when their needs weren t being met, when they didn t feel safe, when they didn t feel acknowledged, when they didn t receive someone s empathy, when they felt like they couldn t really be themselves around that person, when they felt like they were constantly clinging onto the relationship because they never, you know, they were in a relationship with the person, but they never really felt like they had them.
4
SPEAKER_02
You know, there s a special kind of hell
4
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to be in a relationship like that.
4
SPEAKER_02
And at a certain point, we have to come to realize that this relationship, I keep telling myself I m going to die if I lose it, is worthless if I don t get these couple of things that I m missing.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so for me, one of the greatest ways to have a standard next time round is not you, there s a whole, you know, I ve wrote two massive chapters in this book on how to be confident, but you don t even need confidence for standards in the beginning.
4
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You just need to know that I can never experience that again because it s too painful.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s like, you don t need to, if I put your hand in a flame, you don t need a standard or confidence to get out of it.
4
SPEAKER_02
You just, you don t need self-worth to get your hand out of the flame.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s just too painful.
4
SPEAKER_02
I can t do that again.
4
SPEAKER_02
And a lot of people, especially people who leave really abusive or difficult relationships, a lot of them, when they have enough time away from it and they start to, their nervous system calms down and they start to experience a different reality, they look back and they re like,
4
SPEAKER_02
no matter how much I still may dream about that person or fantasize about that person, or, you know, get sentimental about that relationship, when they really think about what it was like to be in it and what that person was like, they re like, I could never go back to being in that kind of a situation.
4
SPEAKER_02
So the necessity is the birthplace of standards before you ever increase your self-worth.
4
SPEAKER_00
The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is an NAACP and Webby Award winning podcast dedicated to all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
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SPEAKER_00
Here, we have the conversations that help black women decipher how their past inform who they are today.
4
SPEAKER_00
and use that information to decide who they want to be moving forward.
4
SPEAKER_00
We chat about things like how to establish routines that center self-care, what burnout looks and feels like, and defining what aspects of our lives are making us happy and what parts are holding us back.
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SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia.
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SPEAKER_00
And I can t wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday.
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SPEAKER_00
Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Take good care, and we ll see you there.
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Something that makes me crazy is when people say, well, I had this career before, but it was a waste.
4
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And that s where the perspective shift comes.
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That it s not a waste, that everything you ve done has built you to where you are now.
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4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, and I love that because I think we get so locked into self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem.
4
SPEAKER_03
And because that s a lifelong journey and a lifelong pursuit, you feel you can t have standards.
4
SPEAKER_03
But I want to go back to something you said because I think this is... I m really enjoying this conversation because I feel like we re really getting into this kind of...
4
SPEAKER_03
subtle nuance space of what s really holding people back from having love in their life.
4
SPEAKER_03
And it s something you said earlier, which I m kind of connecting to what you re saying now, this difference between an egoic standard, in your words, and then an emotive standard or an emotional standard.
4
SPEAKER_03
And maybe there s a better word for it that you ve developed or come across, but I m trying to separate it because I think an egoic standard is, well, yeah,
4
SPEAKER_03
if they ask me out, they have to pay on the first date.
4
SPEAKER_03
So we start getting lost or like an egoic standard is they should message me first.
4
SPEAKER_03
Like I don t think those are the types of standards that Audrey said to you or the kind of standard that you re recommending.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s this great, my favorite TikTok page to follow in the world is called Guy with the List.
4
SPEAKER_03
Have you seen this guy?
4
SPEAKER_03
So what he does is he will take random videos of girls who share their ics.
4
SPEAKER_03
and they are hilarious, right?
4
SPEAKER_03
They are the most ridiculous things.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s like, I don t like guys who work out with their mates.
4
SPEAKER_03
All the way through to, I don t like guys with a big bum, right?
4
SPEAKER_03
Whatever it may be.
4
SPEAKER_03
And this guy, what he ll do is he ll take the clip of a girl saying that, and then he ll go to his notes page in Apple and add it to his list of things of not to be.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s the best page in the world.
4
SPEAKER_03
So it s just the longest list of ridiculous... He s on 794 the last time I saw.
4
SPEAKER_03
And it s like a guy with the list.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s brilliant.
4
SPEAKER_03
And the reason I bring it up is because I think that s what we think standards are now.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I think to your point earlier, I think you labeled it an egoic standard.
4
SPEAKER_03
So walk us through how we transform our egoic standards into, I m calling them emotional standards, whatever the right word is.
4
SPEAKER_03
How do we transfer them over?
4
SPEAKER_03
Because I think we think we re setting standards, but they re standards like, he s got to pay on the first date.
4
SPEAKER_03
she better text me first.
4
SPEAKER_03
I won t reply for a week.
4
SPEAKER_03
The example you gave.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I think that s, what s tripping us up.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
I think that it s almost like there s standards that arise from ego and their standards arise from what s going to make us happy.
4
SPEAKER_02
And that the two are often completely different, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
Because
4
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actually the things that make us happy can be much more subtle and less prescriptive than the things that feed our ego in some way.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s two points I want to make about this.
4
SPEAKER_02
The first one is in relation to
4
SPEAKER_02
the kind of inherent judgment that is in so many of those ics and so many of those things.
4
SPEAKER_02
I would never want someone who s like this.
4
SPEAKER_02
I would never want someone who does that.
4
SPEAKER_02
that we write people off at lightning speed.
4
SPEAKER_02
And not just entirely superficial things, but ways that people are not like us, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
So you ve got people who are like, oh, if they re not into, especially like, you know, your audience is into self-development, my audience tends to be into self-development.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s very easy for someone who gets into self-development to suddenly be like, I want somebody else who s into self-development.
4
SPEAKER_02
Right.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I get that question all the time.
4
SPEAKER_02
Like now that I m doing all of this growth work, I want someone who can keep up.
4
SPEAKER_02
I want someone who s on my level.
4
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And I want to remind people like you weren t doing this two years ago.
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Like this is in a way, this is like a complete contempt you have for you two years ago.
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Wow.
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Before like a certain mentor or influence or something came into your life and turned you on to something.
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There s also a slight arrogance about the standards, you know, these things we have, because it s,
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You know, someone could have lived on a farm their whole life and have no idea what self-development even is as a kind of idea, a concept, let alone that there s this entire industry around it.
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And they may have a wisdom that
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you never picked up on in the world that you grew up in.
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And that might be one of the greatest bits of synergy between the two of you is the wisdom you bring and the wisdom they bring that s different and has come from a very different place, a very different way of living.
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So, you know, I think there s a lack of humility sometimes in thinking that people have to be like us and then judging them for the ways that they re not like us.
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And a lot of the way we judge other people arises out of a lack of self-compassion because we haven t really accepted ourselves.
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We haven t really, you know, I know every time I got punched in the face by life, every time like I took a big hit and I, you know, experienced a really bad heartbreak, that was a big one for me, like a very humbling experience for me.
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I experienced years of chronic physical pain.
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And when that happened in my life, I like truly just hit a kind of bottom because I just didn t know how I would ever, I tried everything in the world and I couldn t make this pain go away.
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And I, it started to basically not just ruin my life because I felt like I couldn t,
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experience joy anymore.
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I was just thinking about my pain all day, every day, but it also robbed me of my confidence.
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Cause I started to feel like, wow, no one s going to be attracted to this version of me that is so frail and fragile and doesn t feel like I wasn t, I really didn t identify as the heroic version of me anymore.
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I was like, this is gonna, I m going to be perceived as pathetic by someone who wants like a strong person.
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because I feel so on the edge of breaking the whole time.
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Because anyone with chronic physical pain knows that you, it s so centralizing and even doing basic things can feel like it s too much.
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But my point is that that going through those things in life, it allowed me to access a level of compassion.
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for other people because I was like, God, how many people have I written off in my life?
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Because, you know, they re this way or they re that way or they re, you know, and look at me right now, I m like on the floor.
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And I found that as I came to accept more of myself and be honest about my own stuff and not just the things going wrong in my life,
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even just difficulties.
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Like if you have a jealous moment and it makes you a little crazy.
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then you re not so quick to call other people crazy when they, you know, react to insecurity they have and it makes them do something extreme in that moment.
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You know, like, well, she s crazy.
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You can t believe what she did.
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Like she s so, she s crazy.
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It s like, you don t, you don t throw that around when, you know, you ve done your share of like crazy because you were in pain and you didn t know how to,
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how to cope with it.
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So I ve found that the more I ve like been humbled in life and the more I ve become accepting of myself,
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and compassionate towards myself, actually the more it s made space for everyone else.
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Because now I wouldn t, if I was single again, I wouldn t be writing off people on all of those things that I might ve written people off for eight years ago or 10 years ago.
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I actually think I would have more options, not less.
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Like people would say, oh, I m growing so much.
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I ve got so few options now because so many few people are on my level.
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I m like, if you re really growing, I actually think it makes space for more people because you become more compassionate.
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and more accepting.
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Um, and you see the soul of that person underneath those behaviors in the way they are, which kind of brings me onto my, my other point, which was when, you know, the person says they didn t pay on the day they invited me and then, you know, they didn t pay for the whole check or whatever.
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I think we re,
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we re not always good at getting behind why someone is the way they are.
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Like what s really driving the way they are.
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Does this person have the same values as me?
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They might do something different on the surface, but underneath that might be the same value.
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We just have arrived at different points.
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Like my wife s a vegetarian.
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I eat meat.
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Like we both love animals.
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know, sincerely, I love animals.
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She makes jokes about me, you know, how much, you know, how I am with animals is one of her favorite things in the world, but I eat them and she doesn t.
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Like we have, we ve arrived at different places, but underneath it all is like the same beating heart.
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And I think that s the thing we re quick to write off when we make those really quick judgments about people.
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And that s not to say like there are certain, you know, red flags that might come up with someone where you go, you know what, not worth finding out what s behind this because it s just too severe.
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And I don t, I really don t like this.
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And it has been a major warning sign for me in the past.
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But I think that s, that s different than taking something like, you know, someone, someone didn t pay half the bill or someone didn t pay the whole bill.
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And like, I, I know that I used to think to myself, I really enjoy paying the bill, but if someone didn t offer, I, for me, I would be like,
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And this is even my judgment, right?
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Because that for them, it might just be conditioning.
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And it might be, I even, there were times where I even spoke up about it, where I found myself paying constantly.
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And I got brave enough to say, hey, it makes me feel.
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kind of taken for granted that you don t ever offer to pay.
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You know, I ve been in situations like that in the past.
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And sometimes if you said that to someone, they d be like, Oh my God, I feel off.
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Like they re so embarrassed.
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And they re like, they will then feel shame about it and be like, God, I, you know, they look at themselves and they re like, Oh, I slipped into a pattern there that I don t like.
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Especially if I express that it s not that I hate, it s not, I don t like paying is that I don t feel like we re a team.
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You know, that might make someone go, well, I value being part of a team as well.
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And I actually don t like that you don t feel like I m a great teammate.
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That s the last thing in the world I d ever want to be.
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So now like you can actually come together because of a moment where you say something like that.
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But I know if I was on a date when I was single and someone didn t even offer, and by the way, I would still pay.
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I still wouldn t let them.
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But if someone didn t offer, it would be, there would be a little piece of me that would be like,
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it doesn t, that doesn t feel like teamwork and maybe, you know, maybe fine if someone invites you on a date and they let you pay half.
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Okay.
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Maybe you say, I don t, I didn t love that, but maybe you see like maybe that needs to play out once or twice more before you decide everything that means about the person.
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Yeah well i think you just hit the nail on the head it s like actually having and i know this isn t sexy and it s not popular but it is what you re trying to say that having the clarifying conversation.
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around why someone behaves the way they do is far more useful as to whether this relationship has a future than what they do.
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So the fact that you re paying or someone s not paying actually doesn t show anything unless you had a conversation about why that s the case.
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And actually how they deal with that conversation and how they respond to it is going to give you all the notes you need as to whether this relationship has a future or not, because what ends up happening, that s with a very tangible thing with paying.
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There could be something that person does that annoys you and you let it go for the first month.
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You let it go for the first three months.
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Now you move in and it triggers you and you re like, God, can you just stop doing that?
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You ve been doing it for nine months now.
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And they re like, well, wait a minute.
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Why didn t you just tell me that?
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And it s like, well, if we actually talked about it on month one, I know Radhi and I have had so many conversations like that.
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And it is true that.
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as you spend more time together, A, you discover more things you disagree on, and B, you discover more things you re grateful for.
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They re both happening at the same time.
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And the disagreement doesn t turn into a disconnect because you have the skills to say, I know how this person deals with challenging conversations because we ve had them for so long.
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We re not waiting for three years to have our first challenging conversation because we ve already had them about less important things.
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And now that we re growing up together,
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You know, I think a lot of people aren t having the early conversation.
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So when it comes to that, how do we want to raise kids?
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Where do we want to live?
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All these are harder conversations if you
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haven t talked about who should pay for the bill, because these are much more bigger emotional condition decisions where people have far more stuff to pull from as to how they make it.
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There s so much to say about all of that.
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Go on, yeah, go, go.
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You re absolutely right.
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And Christopher Hitchens used to say, it s more important how someone thinks than what they think.
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And I think that we never, when we re being too judgmental or assumptive, we don t necessarily learn how someone thinks.
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We learn what they think and then we discard them based on what they think or what they do.
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You re absolutely right that by having the conversation, you see how they deal with the conversation itself, which should, by the way, for anyone wanting a serious relationship, it should, that should be like one of your baseline needs is that I need someone who is willing to have real conversations with me.
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where we can acknowledge things, because someone who can t acknowledge things can t grow, right?
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It s like one of the key features of narcissism is the inability to admit wrongdoing.
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And that breeds incompetence, by the way, because if you can t admit wrongdoing and take ownership, you can t get better at something.
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So, you know, whether you re dealing with narcissism or just someone who can t see themselves clearly or can t acknowledge the way you feel or the way something they ve done has made you feel,
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if you re in that situation, it s gonna be a rough relationship.
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So how soon do you wanna find out the way the two of you engage on that level?
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But it s also engaging on that level is a form.
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This is, I think, what we forget is that, well, let me make two points about this.
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I wrote an entire chapter in this book on hard conversations, not just because we tend to avoid them at all costs, because we don t,
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like them.
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Like it s like, you know, in fight club where the, you know, he, he says like most men will do anything to avoid a fight.
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Like it s like most people will do anything to avoid a hard conversation because we just hate it s awkward.
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It s embarrassing.
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You know, we probably, many of us grew up not being good at confrontation or not being taught how to have healthy confrontation.
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And so we, we avoid it and we hold onto it.
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And we hold on to it and we re afraid what will happen if we speak up about our needs.
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I know that one thing I did a disservice to people that I had in my love life in previous times of my life, because the times where I might have really needed some time to myself, I didn t express it.
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And then by not expressing it, because I was afraid, I then became,
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like resentful and avoidant and started to push that person away because I had just decided my needs couldn t be met in this relationship without giving them a chance to even see that part of me and show up for me in that way.
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So we do that all the way to the beginning of dating.
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You know, we do that when we see, you know, that I, I joke in the book about red flags because I m like,
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If we listen to every single piece of advice on the internet about what s a red flag, not only would everyone be undateable, so would we, right?
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Like I d be excluded from the dating pool because I for sure have some of those red flags or have had at some point in my life.
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you know, we, and that s, I don t want to be hypocritical.
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I ve been a contributor to the advice on red flags, but like when you start adding them all up, you re like, Oh my God, is there any room for mistakes?
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Is there any room for someone to do something that, you know, uh, isn t them on their best day now?
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Robert Green, I ve heard him say, you know, if someone does something, pay attention to that because nobody ever does anything once.
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If they did it once, it s a pattern.
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I think that s an amazing, like if I was creating a survival guide for life, that would go in it because it s great advice.
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But I also know that there s things I ve done in my life or my relationship that I did once, especially after a hard conversation I felt bad about and decided I don t want to be that person or I don t want to do that again.
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So we do want to reserve some space in life for the fact that we can learn, we can adapt, we can progress.
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What I know for sure is that people don t progress without the hard conversations.
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What we ignore, we tacitly approve.
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And what we point out bravely, albeit there are elegant ways to do it.
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And I show people elegant ways to do it.
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Yeah.
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That to me is then you re looking for progress.
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Like is when I ve mentioned it,
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is, does it bring us closer together?
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Cause in the right situation, communicating should actually bring you closer together.
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It shouldn t, then you shouldn t feel gaslit.
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You shouldn t feel like you re called crazy or difficult or that should actually bring you together.
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And then our standard has to be that by having that conversation, I need to see progress in that area.
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And if I don t see progress in that area, I m not going to ignore the fact that there s been no progress in that area.
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But if there s no progress,
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Now it has become a kind of a delusional thing to expect that they are going to change.
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But I can t stress this enough.
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We, in our love lives today, everyone is really, really good at, and rightly so, I m not, this is what they re talking about is real, but we re really good at complaining about what dating is like today.
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and how hard it is.
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And it is like, it is hard.
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Finding love is hard.
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It is the wild west.
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There is so much bad behavior.
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There s so many ways to just, God, there s just so many ways for it to be bad.
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And unfortunately for us, our love life is an area we can influence, but we can t control it to the level of precision that we can in other areas of our lives.
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If we want to lose weight, we can eat better and we can work out, and our body will change.
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It may not get to our perfect weight, but it will change reliably.
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In your love life, you can go on a date every day for the next year and still not find love, or you can find love and six months later that person cheats on you and leaves you and you re back to square one.
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It s a maddening area in many ways because we deeply want to find love.
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It is one of the most human of desires is to find love and it panics us.
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At first it frustrates us and it makes us angry.
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But at some point for many people, it panics them because they re worried, I m never going to meet anyone.
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We can t just decide I m going to find love in the next three months and make it happen.
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But what we have to start taking ownership of and where we have to start taking our power back is that you can go into your dating life from a place of leadership.
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And so many people I think go in with a state of following, like what s the level right now of people s effort?
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What s the level of men s chivalry?
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What s the level of whether people pick up the phone or not instead of relentlessly texting?
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What s the level of communication between dates or what I can expect from someone in terms of,
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assurances that we re just seeing each other.
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Like there s all this rhetoric about where things are and people don t try anymore and no one wants to commit and so on.
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But if you re not careful, you can get into a really passive state about all of that.
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Mitch Albom said, if you don t like the culture, you have to be brave enough to create your own.
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I love that.
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And by the way, that s what we do in business, right?
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That s what you ve done in your business is that you ve created a culture that you love.
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that is right for you.
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And that s what you, you know, in the most positive way infect your team with is that beautiful culture and that amazing way that you see the world and the way that you do things.
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And it makes your organization unlike any other in the world.
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It s got your thumbprint on it.
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That s the beauty in a way of starting a business is that you get to do it your way and our love life can be the same we can decide what s the culture.
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I want to have instead of commenting on culture what s the culture i want to create in my love life if someone.
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you know, if I m sick of this whole constant texting thing, well, why don t I be the one to leave someone a voice note today?
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Like why, if someone s just sent me the 50th text, why don t I send them back when they ask me, how am I doing today?
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Why not?
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Like,
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just say, maybe it s too scary to call them, but maybe I just leave a voice note and say, Hey, how you doing?
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I thought I d, uh, you know, I thought I d leave you a voice note.
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I m out with my sister right now.
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We re in Ikea.
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We re trying to find furniture for this thing.
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I ll send you a picture because I am dreading getting home and having to actually make this.
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Tell me about your day.
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Like, how you doing?
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Like, you know, you can inject a different level of energy and, and enthusiasm or sexiness or flirtatiousness or whatever it may be a little laugh here that s endearing.
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You can do all of that in a voice note in a way that when someone listens
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to it, now it s not just another text on their phone, you re like attacking a different sense.
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And that will increase the level of intimacy, even just by 1%, 2%.
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And that might just make you, like that s leadership, because you re not just, we spend so much time mirroring people.
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Like I m going to mirror how someone else is, what someone else is giving me in this, this person I m seeing, but we have to start modeling more like it.
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Don t get me wrong.
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If you model behavior that you want to see by being the one who picks up the phone first or leaves the voice note, and then they, they don t meet you there.
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Then you can say, okay, I m going to start to mirror their lack of investment.
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I m going to start to back off.
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But you can t just be in a state of mirroring all the time.
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It works on every level, man.
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I was, I was at my coffee shop this morning and there s a guy there that really like, we always have like a really nice, like three minute conversation.
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And this morning, like it never goes further than that.
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But this morning, as he was going to the coffee bar, he said, can I get you a coffee?
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Now, like I remember in that moment, I thought that was like a little moment of like vulnerability and leadership.
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that was like, had the potential to upgrade the relationship.
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You know what I mean?
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Like this is just another guy in a coffee shop, but it was like, Oh, we might hear you offered me a coffee.
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I say yes.
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And now like our relationship is one where you got me a coffee.
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And now we might sit for 10 minutes on that s how things move, but they can t move.
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If you re in this like fearful protectionist, I don t want to get hurt.
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I don t want to give more than the other person.
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I don t want to, that s not a good standard to have a great standard to have is lead and model the kind of culture you want to see.
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And if someone doesn t meet you there, that s where the standard comes in.
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That s where you, of course, the standard is modeling, but the counter standard, if they don t meet you there, is to say, this isn t someone I m going to continue modeling that kind of investment for because they re not meeting me there.
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Yeah.
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That is, oh man, that is so well put.
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And I m so glad that you made that so clear because I couldn t agree with you more.
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I feel like we re limiting ourselves so much
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And we re actually creating what you just ended on there.
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It s a really powerful point.
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We re actually creating a culture that even if this relationship lasts, it will be set at the wrong level.
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So the culture of that relationship now is we sometimes text, we rarely call.
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And now even if the relationship lasts and we do like each other a little bit, it s never going to change from that.
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So you re way better off setting the standard and the culture from day one,
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and seeing if it develops and grows and i find what most people do and i think we ve all experienced this is for three to six months we try not disrupt the culture and then six months later we re like no no no but i always wanted this and i thought we were going to get there and the person s like no no no but this is what we are and i remember that radhi
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who s the only person I ve ever been with since I left the monastery, it was like, she was the person that I was fully clear with about who I was, what my expectations were, where we were.
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And thankfully, she was that back too.
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And we had some really hard conversations early on about some big things that were important to her, not important to me, important to me, not important to her.
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And what I loved was how we talked about those things and how we navigated those things.
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And it s not that we re perfect and we don t have issues.
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We have so many challenges.
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We ve been together for 11 years now.
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There s so many things that have come up over the years that have given us different challenges.
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But the difference is we set a culture of how to deal with difficult things early on.
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And I think what I hear time and time again, and I know you hear this probably 10x the amount I hear this, it all comes down to the fact that we want people
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to like us so bad.
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that we re willing to act unlike ourselves in order for them to like us.
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Because if they can like a version of us, then that s good enough for us.
7
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And so if the version is, I never bother you, I never text, I never call you, we will be that person for you because that makes you like me.
7
SPEAKER_02
We all love to be referred to as that person who s like, oh yeah, they re low maintenance.
7
SPEAKER_02
And we love that label.
7
SPEAKER_02
We re like, yeah, yeah, I m low maintenance.
7
SPEAKER_02
And inside, we re like,
7
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Yeah, I mean, I ve got way more needs than this.
7
SPEAKER_02
But guess what?
7
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I ve set the culture of being low maintenance.
7
SPEAKER_02
Now, a year later, they re like, wait a minute, you were low maintenance a year ago.
7
SPEAKER_02
Why are you high maintenance?
7
SPEAKER_01
Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry.
7
SPEAKER_01
We re going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone.
7
SPEAKER_01
We re going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development, and just building your mindset to have a happier, healthier life.
7
SPEAKER_01
We re going to be talking with some of my best friends.
7
SPEAKER_01
I didn t know we were going to go there on this.
7
SPEAKER_01
People that I admire.
7
SPEAKER_01
When we say listen to your body, really tune into what s going on.
7
SPEAKER_01
Authors of books that have changed my life.
7
SPEAKER_01
Now you re talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy.
7
SPEAKER_01
And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life.
7
SPEAKER_01
I already believe in myself.
7
SPEAKER_01
I already see myself.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so when people give me an opportunity, I m just like,
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh great, you see me too!
7
SPEAKER_01
We ll laugh together, we ll cry together, and find a way through all of our emotions.
7
SPEAKER_01
Never forget, it s okay to cry, as long as you make it a really good one.
7
SPEAKER_01
Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhi Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
7
SPEAKER_00
Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like easy listening, but for fiction.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you ve overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m Katherine Nicolai, and you might know me from the Bedtime Story podcast, Nothing Much Happens.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m an architect of cozy, and I invite you to come spend some time where everyone is welcome and kindness is the default.
7
SPEAKER_00
When you tune in, you ll hear stories about bakeries and walks in the woods, a favorite booth at the diner on a blustery autumn day, cats and dogs, unrescued goats and donkeys, old houses, bookshops, beaches where kites fly, and pretty stones are found.
7
SPEAKER_00
I have so many stories to tell you, and they are all designed to help you feel good and feel connected to what is good in the world.
7
SPEAKER_00
Listen, relax, enjoy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Listen to stories from the Village of Nothing Much on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
7
SPEAKER_04
Hey, it s me Blippi and this is my best friend, Mika.
7
SPEAKER_04
Hi, I m Mika and this is our brand new podcast.
7
SPEAKER_04
Blippi and Mika s Road Trip.
7
SPEAKER_04
The Blippi Mobile will take us to amazing places.
7
SPEAKER_04
We ll explore and listen to the sounds of awesome places like farms, racetracks...
7
SPEAKER_04
and even construction sites!
7
SPEAKER_04
Follow your ears, what do you hear?
7
SPEAKER_04
And we ll meet new friends along the way!
7
SPEAKER_04
They ll teach us awesome new things about the places and things we see and hear!
7
SPEAKER_04
What did we learn today?
7
SPEAKER_04
It s so cool!
7
SPEAKER_04
Listen to Blippi and Mika s Road Trip Podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
7
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Yeah.
7
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And there s two problems with that.
7
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One is that it can actually make it so that someone can t even really read us or our intentions.
7
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It s a bit like when someone is like, wants to be cool and indifferent.
7
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Well, if there s a story I tell in the book of a friend of mine who was dating someone and then went on a trip and he didn t really reach out to her on that trip.
7
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And
7
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by the time he got home after a few days, she said to him on the phone, the fact that you were away and you didn t really speak to me made me feel funny.
7
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Like it made me feel like you may have been sharing your bed with someone else.
7
SPEAKER_03
And they hadn t been on like, this isn t two people who had been dating for six months.
7
SPEAKER_03
They d been on a couple of dates, but that was the moment when he said to me, I think I like this person.
7
SPEAKER_03
because there was an intentionality to it.
7
SPEAKER_03
She didn t go, I m being high maintenance by saying this.
7
SPEAKER_03
she just communicated what she was feeling.
7
SPEAKER_03
And by doing that, instead of being cool, indifferent girl, like chill, I m chill.
7
SPEAKER_03
Like I don t care that you didn t text me while you were away.
7
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She went, no, no, no, no.
7
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It made me feel funny because it would, the subtext is it would hurt me to know, like maybe we haven t known each other that long, but it would still make me feel something to know that you d shared your bed with someone else while you were away.
7
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That s a very powerful thing to do.
7
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Because if he s seeing multiple people in that moment, all of them playing cool, indifferent, whatever, he now sees someone who is actually telegraphing
8
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the kind of person she is, that she s a three-dimensional person with real feelings.
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and that she wants something more.
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She is not the kind of person to date if you don t want something more.
8
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And by the way, even the first time someone gets like just a little bit jealous of something, can be a moment of intentionality in a relationship.
8
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Because the moment you see someone s a little bit, like they convey a little bit of, even if it s playful jealousy, oh, I don t like, that made me feel funny.
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You re not allowed to text that, but whatever.
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you can go, it almost could make you like that person more.
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Cause you can go, Oh, that s like,
8
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It s almost like you ve telegraphed that we ve gone to a new level where jealousy is even possible.
8
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Because at the beginning, jealousy wasn t even possible.
8
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Now it is.
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You must like me.
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I think I like you too.
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You know, it s like, there s a, we re so afraid of, of saying these things that actually telegraph intentionality, which is a really, really powerful thing.
8
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Yeah.
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But we, but it all comes down back to the root of we re so scared.
8
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because we re scared that that person will leave, and often they will because they re friends saying to them, oh yeah, man, they re psycho, oh, they re obsessive, leave, right?
8
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And so we don t want these extreme labels.
8
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And I think often, so we re scared of looking unattractive, we re scared of being unwanted, we re scared of being rejected, right?
8
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That s the reason we don t say any of this because we re like, if I say that, they re going to think I m psycho, crazy, obsessed, and I don t want to come across that way.
8
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And so I won t say anything until one year on, which, by the way, they re going to think the same exact thing when it s a full surprise.
8
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So I want to talk to you about that.
8
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And then the other idea that I see a lot of that people get stuck on is when they say something, they say it as a demand.
8
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or a command where it s like, well, I expect you to do this.
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And that s where I think it s unhealthy, because I like someone being honest with me, but I also don t want that to be my progress report, because I may have a really good thing to say back.
8
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And so if I m going to say back, if someone said that to me, like, you didn t contact me, I ll be like, yeah, you know what?
8
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When I travel, I actually really struggle to stay in touch with anyone, because I m really trying to be present.
8
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I m really trying to immerse.
8
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But now that I know that s a value for you, next time I go away, let s talk about how often we can both keep in touch realistically.
8
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Because I m also not going to promise I m going to call you every single day, even if I m really excited about you, because I m also going to set my standard back.
8
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And I think often people don t want to hear that either.
8
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They want to hear someone say,
8
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Oh, of course, I understand everything you re saying, and I m going to call you every day when I go away again.
8
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And so one side is you re scared of getting fully rejected, and the other side is you re scared of not getting exactly what you want.
8
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And I don t think both those expectations are useful because
8
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you might get rejected and you re never going to get exactly what you want in an authentic way.
8
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No.
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And I think that s why we, if we re the one who wants something, we have to zoom out enough to look at whether this person and what they bring to our life and what this relationship is like holistically is enough for us.
8
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Because we may say, I want this person to call me every day, but that may genuinely not be their style, right?
8
SPEAKER_02
They re not someone who enjoys sitting on the phone as much as you do.
8
SPEAKER_02
They might pick up the phone and call you every couple of days, but in the meantime, they will text you or you have to, it s like you have to zoom out and go, how much of this relationship, not these moments, whether they call or not, how much of this relationship meets my needs?
8
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you know, what are the fundamental things?
8
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Well, I need to feel safe with someone.
8
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Like I need to feel like they actually want me.
8
SPEAKER_02
and that I m not kind of investing under a misapprehension about what this is.
8
SPEAKER_02
I need to know at a certain point that regardless of our differences, we re giving this a go and we re exclusive, right?
8
SPEAKER_02
So that might be one thing.
8
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Another thing is I need to feel like whether it s on the exact platform I might have hoped, I need to feel like I get enough communication, you know, holistically in this relationship to feel like
8
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I m actually connected to this person.
8
SPEAKER_02
You know, if someone very rarely travels and then they go away and you don t hear from them a lot when they travel, that may not be a big deal.
8
SPEAKER_02
If they re on the road half the year and then they re not really connecting with you while they re traveling, that s going to have a much bigger impact on your life.
8
SPEAKER_02
It doesn t make them wrong.
8
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but it might not be enough for you.
8
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And that s where we have to start getting really honest with ourselves.
8
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We get so caught up in who s right and wrong, and we don t spend enough time just asking, is it right for me?
8
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Does this person work well with me?
8
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Are we compatible?
8
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And, and compatibility is, is everything.
8
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You know, you can t, I talk about four levels of importance in any relationship or any person, any dynamic you have with a person.
8
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The first one is admiration.
8
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That s just you admiring someone.
8
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It doesn t mean very much.
8
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They may not even know you exist.
8
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The second one is mutual attraction.
8
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That s when you actually know you like each other.
8
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The third one is commitment.
8
SPEAKER_02
That s when you don t just like each other, but you re actually saying yes to the relationship.
8
SPEAKER_02
And the fourth one is compatibility because actually love isn t all you need.
8
SPEAKER_02
You need two people who actually work well together.
8
SPEAKER_02
You know, is it s not, is this person,
8
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you know, am I good at handling them?
8
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And are they good at handling me?
8
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Like, that s a pretty, I think that s a pretty good barometer of a relationship.
8
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I came to this- That s a great one.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, because you re going to come with your stuff, this nonsense of like, we have to come to a relationship fully healed.
8
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Who does?
8
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No one.
8
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Who?
8
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Like it s an, it s a, it s this idea that gets talked about that no one actually does.
8
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No one comes to ever, I m going to make myself whole and healed and everything before a relationship.
8
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Good luck.
8
SPEAKER_02
And by the way, half the people who say that stuff who have been married 10 years, they weren t that way when they met their partner.
8
SPEAKER_02
So we find imperfect people, you know, we are damaged vessels that somehow still work.
8
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And that s beautiful.
8
SPEAKER_02
And we re trying to find another damaged vessel that we go, Oh, I understand the, I understand the fabric of their challenges and what they struggle with.
8
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Or at least I, it makes sense to me when I hear it and you know, I have compassion for it and I have empathy for it and I have affection for it even and vice versa.
8
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And so now when we,
8
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go through our inevitable things, we re just good at handling each other.
8
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So it s when we, when we have a standard, we may not end up exactly where we want to be, but the ultimate standard of holistically, are you getting what you need from this relationship?
8
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That s a really important question that not enough people ask.
8
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And as a result, they suffer in unhappy relationships.
8
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It s so interesting to get into that kind of, you know, to go beyond that superficial conversation of make a list of what you want and like, you know, try and find it out.
8
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And, you know, that, that kind of egocentric list that we get, let s, let s talk a bit about breakups because,
8
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I think the challenge is that everyone in their life goes through at least one or two, maybe more really painful breakups, whether it s infidelity, whether it s how it feels out of the blue.
8
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Someone just goes, yep, not working out for me anymore, whether it s different goals and different plans and priorities that emerge over time.
8
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And I think everyone who goes through a breakup
8
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blames it on themself often, thinks that this is the end, there ll never be another person.
8
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And it feels like a really dark, dark, dark, empty road and a lonely road.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s really interesting because there s so many, you know, piece of advice and everything about like how to get over a breakup.
8
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And I ve talked about that as well myself, but I just find that it seems to be a path that you have to walk and have to take.
8
SPEAKER_00
and there s no real acceleration or there s not, as you said, there s not like, I m going to get over this breakup in three months, right?
8
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There s no timeline or deadline that you can set on it, but it s just uncomfortable.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s almost like sitting in discomfort.
8
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What do we do when we re sitting in that discomfort?
8
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Well, when you re in the depths of it, because there s different phases, right?
8
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Like there s a certainly a phase of any heartbreak when it s genuine, deep heartbreak, where you are just questioning your existence, where you are like, I this, you know, I remember having my own heart broken and sitting on this door, the doorstep of my house with a friend of mine.
8
SPEAKER_02
And just with tears in my eyes saying to him,
9
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just feel like I m not good enough.
9
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Like that was my deep sense was that I am not good enough.
9
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And if I was good enough, I would have been able to make this work.
9
SPEAKER_01
And, and that s a, it s a horrible place to be.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you, you know, we have to have compassion for ourselves in those times because it s brutally difficult.
9
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It s a time where we just need love and we need to celebrate the fact that we got through another day and that we got and managed to get out of bed today.
9
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And, you know, it was an act of, it was a heroic act for me to just get out of bed.
9
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We then have to, you know, I always think that,
9
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All of these moments give us gears that we wouldn t have had otherwise.
9
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And the worst pain of my life has given me access to gears that I didn t know I had.
9
SPEAKER_01
And as much as no one wants to hear it when they re in it, those gears turn out to be really valuable.
9
SPEAKER_01
They really do.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we all choose suffering in our lives.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like we choose to go to the gym, that s choosing suffering.
9
SPEAKER_01
We choose like to write a book, that s choosing a form of suffering.
9
SPEAKER_01
We choose to make a podcast or we choose to climb a literal mountain or like we choose pain.
9
SPEAKER_01
in our lives regularly because we know that it gives us, there are benefits to be had.
9
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I have to argue that the benefit I have gotten from the pain that I didn t choose has been no less valuable than the benefit I ve gotten from the pain I did choose.
9
SPEAKER_01
In fact, actually, I think the most valuable pain I ve ever had is the pain I didn t choose.
9
SPEAKER_01
And when you realize that, you can kind of almost, I think, look at some of the worst moments of your life
9
SPEAKER_01
as like a menu of pain.
9
SPEAKER_01
And beside the item on the menu is the very specific, unique benefits that can only come from this kind of pain.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you can kind of imagine yourself choosing, like retroactively choosing that pain.
9
SPEAKER_01
which is a very valuable thing to do because there s, I was told by a psychologist about an experiment on rats where one rat was on a wheel and was just given, you know, like the free reign to just run whenever it wanted to run.
9
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There was another rat, this was rat A, rat B was connected to that wheel.
9
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He was on another wheel that was connected to rat A s wheel.
9
SPEAKER_01
And any time rat A chose to run, rat B had to run, right?
9
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So both doing the same amount of exercising, but at the end of the experiment, rat A shows all the positive markers of exercise and rat B shows all the negative markers of stress.
9
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Same amount of exercise, what s the difference?
9
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Well, rat A chose to run, rat B didn t.
9
SPEAKER_01
And there s something profound about that to me, because if we can take a situation that we didn t choose, who would choose to be heartbroken, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
It s the worst, it s a terrible pain.
9
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But what if in that pain, you did realize like, there is something here that I m gonna gain from this experience that I couldn t have any other way.
9
SPEAKER_01
that if I look on that menu of pain, this one has some really good benefits.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like this one has some really amazing stuff.
9
SPEAKER_01
Who I m gonna have to become to get through this, what I m gonna have to learn, the way I m gonna have to get comfortable, even just to get through a weekend right now on my own is gonna be this unbelievable feat.
9
SPEAKER_01
and to get comfortable in my own company and to sit in this pain.
9
SPEAKER_01
And there are such profound benefits from that.
9
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What if I did actually look at those benefits and say, they re so powerful.
9
SPEAKER_01
that I m gonna choose this pain so that I can experience those benefits.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so you turn yourself from rat B to rat A, and all of a sudden you re not a victim of that pain anymore.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re the beneficiary of these exquisite gifts that you could only get this way.
9
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And that,
9
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There s one tool I ve used to get through some of the worst, worst pain of my life.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then on a psychological level with heartbreak, what I always remind people is that if anyone who doesn t choose you cannot be for you, if they don t see you, like what is a relationship?
9
SPEAKER_01
It s someone sees you, they accept you and they want that.
9
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that s the most beautiful part of a relationship.
9
SPEAKER_01
So if someone doesn t see you and accept you and want what they see, then this relationship is missing the most beautiful part of any relationship.
9
SPEAKER_01
It shouldn t even be, you know, it shouldn t be desirable at that stage because it s not
9
SPEAKER_01
it has failed the fundamental test of what makes a relationship worth having.
9
SPEAKER_01
We re not talking about a person who, you know, in at least the case I feel we re talking about, the person who was taken from us by life.
9
SPEAKER_01
We re talking about a person who s just walking around somewhere, still existing on the planet, but choosing not to be with us.
9
SPEAKER_01
that should lose its romance to us.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know, and to say, well, if that s the other game we play is, if it was a different time in life, if they were a bit older, they would have been ready to commit.
9
SPEAKER_01
If they had been in different phase where they weren t so busy with their work, they might ve had the space to really give to this relationship, but they said their work isn t allowing them to.
9
SPEAKER_01
If it s like we go through all these scenarios where it,
9
SPEAKER_01
forces us into this sad love song of right person, wrong time.
9
SPEAKER_01
And that s a really like pernicious story.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s a very dangerous story because it takes what belongs in the realm of science fiction and brings it into our reality.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like when we re thinking about an ex from like five years ago,
9
SPEAKER_01
And we re like, I miss them.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t know why, you know, you don t even know who they are anymore.
9
SPEAKER_01
That was five years ago.
9
SPEAKER_01
They re a different person now in many ways.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re a different person now in any way.
9
SPEAKER_01
If you got together now, you d be getting together as different people.
9
SPEAKER_01
You miss a ghost.
9
SPEAKER_01
Person doesn t exist anymore in the way that you think they do.
9
SPEAKER_01
And when you re saying, oh, if only we met five years from now, it would have worked.
9
SPEAKER_01
In what parallel universe?
9
SPEAKER_01
This is science fiction.
9
SPEAKER_01
It didn t happen in this universe.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like, it is wishing for a parallel universe where everything, all the dominoes unfolded in a different way.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s not this universe.
9
SPEAKER_01
So we just, we have to get out of this mindset because it gets us bought into a science fiction story that doesn t really exist.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t believe in the right person at the wrong time.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s the right person is right in their personality, they re ready, and their life is compatible with yours.
9
SPEAKER_01
If you re missing one of those three things, then it s not the right person.
9
SPEAKER_01
The right person has to be more than someone who you have a great time with and you like who they are and have great conversation and great intimacy.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s not the only criteria for someone who s right.
9
SPEAKER_01
So we have to stop telling ourself the story
9
SPEAKER_01
that someone who broke up with us or it was bad timing or whatever is the right person for us.
9
SPEAKER_01
That is just a story.
9
SPEAKER_01
It is not reality.
9
SPEAKER_01
The right person is the person it happens with.
9
SPEAKER_00
Matthew Asi, books called Love s Life.
9
SPEAKER_00
That was, that hit right there, man.
9
SPEAKER_00
That resonated so deeply.
9
SPEAKER_00
If you haven t already gone and ordered this while you re listening or watching, please, please, please go and grab this book.
9
SPEAKER_00
As you can tell, Matthew s just woven beautifully his own experiences, his own challenges, mixed in with insights, lessons, research, practical steps.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s all in the book.
9
SPEAKER_00
And today we ve just given you a little tip of the iceberg of,
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And this was genuinely just a real conversation of me and Matthew going back and forth, which we need to do a lot more of.
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But just sitting here with you today, Matthew, I ve gained so much, so much, honestly.
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And as someone who s written a book about love, too, there was so much today that I feel like we uncovered and unpacked.
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And so I can t wait for people to dive into love life, how to raise your standards, find your person, and live happily no matter what.
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Grab your copy now.
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Matthew, thank you again.
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Everyone who s been listening and watching, share and tag
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your greatest insights with me and Matthew on Instagram, on TikTok.
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I know you guys are cutting up all these amazing clips.
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Keep them coming.
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Let us know what resonated with you, what you re trying out, what you re practicing, what you re implementing, what s working for you, and something that you re struggling with as well.
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Let us know so that we can try to create more conversations and more content that can support you on your journey.
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Matthew, thank you.
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Any last words?
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Anything you want to share?
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No, I would just say, um, if people go to lovelifebook.com, not only can you get the book there from any retailer you want, um, but I m doing an event on May 4th called find your person that s designed to be this.
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It s a virtual event, so you could do it from wherever you are in the world, wherever you buy the book from.
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Um, but we re all going to get together and I m going to take everything that you learned from the book and apply it to a year plan with you.
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I love that anyone who is like finding my person is a real priority for me in my life is what I deeply want.
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I m not ashamed of it.
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I want that for myself.
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This is going to take all of the knowledge and the awareness and the ideas you have from the book.
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and actually put you on a path in this live event to getting that over the course of the next year of your life.
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Oh, I love that.
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So that s lovelifebook.com.
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Yeah, if you go to lovelifebook.com, you can not only get the book, you can use your receipt from the book to get a free ticket to this event.
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It s not a, you know, it s not a paid for event.
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No one can come just by buying their way onto it.
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It s literally something that s just reserved for everyone who s getting a copy of the book.
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Oh, I love that.
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That s a beautiful idea, man.
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Well, yeah, lovelifebook.com, everyone.
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That s the place to go.
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If you love this episode, you re going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships.
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SPEAKER_04
People should be compassionate to themselves, but extend that compassion to your future self.
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Because truly extending your compassion to your future self is doing something that gives him or her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life.
10
SPEAKER_01
Parents, if you ve ever experienced bedtime battles with the kids, I m gonna let you into a little secret.
10
SPEAKER_01
The Koala Moon podcast has revolutionized over 20 million bedtimes, with parents like you calling it life-changing and the perfect nighttime routine.
10
SPEAKER_01
With original kids  bedtime stories and cozy sleep meditations, every episode has been specially designed to make bedtimes a dream.
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SPEAKER_01
Listen to Koala Moon on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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SPEAKER_02
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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SPEAKER_02
I m your host, Gabby Collins.
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SPEAKER_02
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
10
SPEAKER_02
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
10
SPEAKER_02
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.
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SPEAKER_02
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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SPEAKER_00
The Black Effect presents Family Therapy, and I m your host, Elliot Connick.
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SPEAKER_00
Jay is the woman in this dynamic who is currently co-parenting two young boys with her former partner, David.
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David, he is a leader.
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He just don t want to leave me.
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SPEAKER_00
But how do you lead a woman?
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SPEAKER_00
How do you lead in a relationship?
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SPEAKER_00
Like, what s the blue part?
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SPEAKER_00
David, you just asked the most important question.
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Listen to Family Therapy on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.