You Won't Find The PERFECT Relationship Until You Know This

Key Takeaway

Want better relationships? Start by examining your role in past failures. If your story about a failed relationship focuses only on what your partner did wrong, you're missing crucial self-awareness. Ask yourself: What role did you play? What did you ignore? Where did you wish you'd spoken up—or stayed quiet? Understanding the dynamic between you and your partner, not just individual behaviors, is essential for growth. Relationships are a figure-eight pattern where each person's actions trigger the other's responses. Take responsibility without self-blame, and you'll break destructive cycles.

Episode Overview

This relationship masterclass features conversations with leading experts including Esther Perel, Jillian Turecki, and Matthew Hussey. The episode explores essential foundations for lasting love: understanding relationship dynamics beyond individual blame, recognizing the importance of play and humor, developing self-awareness about your own psychology, and breaking patterns of codependency. Experts emphasize that successful relationships require personal wholeness, realistic expectations, and the courage to maintain your own happiness rather than depending on a partner to provide it.

Full Transcript

Transcript of You Won't Find The PERFECT Relationship Until You Know This from The School of Greatness. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

If you want to stop being in relationships that you feel like you're failing in and they aren't making you happy, then you need to stop repeating the same patterns that you've always repeated. And you need to learn how to become the best partner for someone and also learn how to attract the right type of partner for yourself. But how do you do that? Well, today I put together a master class with the five most impactful conversations with relationship experts that we've had here on the School of Greatness to help you understand how to create lasting love in your life.

In this first section, I'm speaking with the one and only Esther Prell, who is a psychotherapist known for her expertise in modern relationships, erotic intelligence, and infidelity. And on the most important internal work that you need to do to improve your future relationships, what is the main thing you would recommend people work on themselves? Whether in transition of relationships or in a relationship, is there one thing that they can always be working on to improve themselves to be better for other relationships? If their entire story about the relationship that just ended is about what the other person did wrong to them, something is missing in the story.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't mean that the other person may not have done things that were hurtful to them, but add to it. Who were you in this relationship? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. What role did you play? What did you see that you didn't want to pay attention to? What things do you wish you had done differently? differently? differently? What pieces do you wish that your partner had seen and accepted from you differently? differently? differently? Where did you wish you would have said less and where did you wish you would have said more?

What do you learn from this relationship? And if when you say what you learn is just that I want to make sure that the next person is right gives me what I need you know or is less of this or more of that you know who do you want to be in the next relationship how are you going to add value a relationship is a story of many people. It's not even a story just of two. Who was too involved in your relationship? Who was not involved enough?

So it's the it's there's a cast of characters in a relationship and uh and it's all those questions that you want to ask when you are in transition. What what I think that's it. I mean you can but they are both directions. If you find yourself with a a spotlight only on the other person and you in a passive receptive um stance, you're missing Yeah. a whole pan of the story. Yeah. And you're probably more of the problem than the of the relationship than them if you're just focusing on them.

Probably them. Probably them. Probably a relationship is not about this person and that person. The relationship is what happens in between. This is my view on relationships. It's it's not an essentialist view. This is this personality and that personality. It's the dynamic, the dynamic, the dynamic, right? right? right? You can have a dynamic with a certain partner. You've had dynamics with certain partners. And of course it was just the right fit between the match and the ignition. the ignition. the ignition. And so you had enough inside of you to react with a certain kind of let's put your jealousy.

your jealousy. your jealousy. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. But you may meet another person who acts differently and you may still have a little bit of that jealousy inside of you but it doesn't get activated because this person is responding very differently to you. And when you say where were you? They don't say why do you always have to ask me that question. They just say I just went to do this. It's all good, darling. I'm right here. I've got you back. And then you don't go into your chest pain, you know, pain.

So, this is very important to understand. We are not the same person with the with different partners. We may have certain things that come out depending on what is being sent over to us. So, the relationship is a figure eight. M it's what I do that makes you do something that then makes you react to me a certain way that then draws that out of me that draws that out of you and each one actually creates the other. And when you get that view of relationships when you come out you and you're in transition you say to yourself let's say I I was with someone who completely disconnected.

completely disconnected. completely disconnected. Okay, they're disconnected. I did I push them away? Are there ways in which I contributed sometimes to the disconnection? And that is not self-lame. That is understanding the dynamic. You can take responsibility about things without blaming yourself and you can hold the other person accountable without blaming them. It's it's not a blame dance, but it is an understanding of what did I do that made you do what you then did to me that then made it that's the relationship. Yeah. And if someone's like, you know what, they're listening to you Esther.

They're they really want to have an amazing relationship. They want to have a rich life knowing it's not going to be perfect, but they want to create beauty and adventure and play and go through life through the the sadness and the adversities and all the things that happen in life. And they're thinking to themselves, how much should I pour into myself for my dreams, my health, my friends and family? How much should I pour into the other person, into their life that I'm creating a partnership with?

And how much should I pour into the relationship itself? What would you say to that? But you ask me, it's a different questions, right? How what keep a what keeps a relationship alive is one question. M question. M question. M how much do you invest in a relationship is a different question. Um so I'm going to go to the one about what keeps it alive because um it's part of and I'm suddenly watching the box and thinking this it is what I'm mostly interested in interested in interested in because I work on eroticism.

because I work on eroticism. What keeps us alive? What keeps us hopeful? What keeps us engaged with possibility? Not physically alive but connected alive. connected alive. connected alive. Connected to life. Life force, life energy. energy. energy. Why? Because Why? Because Why? Because because I think everybody understands relationships that are not dead versus relationships that are alive. Teams that are not dead, companies versus companies that are alive. What is flourishing versus surviving? M and because it is part of my personal history and I come from a background of survivors of parents who were in concentration camps and I wanted to understand how do people stay alive when they spend five years in a concentration camp.

So that's why I got interested in eroticism. Sexuality is a piece of this but sexuality is not eroticism. You can have sex every day and feel nothing. Eroticism is the poetry that accompanies it. It's the meaning we give to it, right? It's the story that's attached. So, eroticism in a relationship is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk-taking, novelty that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship. So in the research of Eli Finkel, it means doing new things together, taking risks beyond your threshold, out of your comfort zone.

Because if you do pleasant things that are familiar, it's cozy, it's friendship, it's love, but it's not exciting, it's not erotic, it's not necessarily desire. necessarily desire. necessarily desire. It's calibrating your expectations so that you have and that means diversifying your intimate connections or your deep connections doesn't you know I for me intimacy doesn't mean sexual either it just means people that are important to you that accompany you through the life stages and through the big events in life these three things expectations calibrating expectations diversifying your con social connections and taking risks and doing new things is the research of I think for driving relationships but then in that piece I think play is essential playfulness it's huge and it is actually the quality of of emotions that is the least talked about how often are you playing in your relationship relationship relationship all the time we have humor is essential it's an essential salve and bomb in my relationship I can in in the middle of an argument and then I start to laugh and then I just get perspective and we just kind of ground ourselves back again.

Um, it's it's flirting, it's teasing, it's making fun of, it's uh it's it's that whole realm of um we're not really serious and we don't take ourselves that serious. And what happens when relationships are taking themselves very serious and they're not playing? Look, I had a teacher who once said to me, "If a couple comes to you for therapy and there is absolutely zero humor left, it is diagnostic." Really? Really? Really? Now, is it true? You know, nobody has proven that scientifically. But what you know is that humor and if you listen to my podcast if you listen to the sessions on where should we begin or on how is work you'll see in the middle of talking about trauma painful event major fights strife I laugh with them I manage to see if they can see themselves if they have a bit of distance of perspective if they understand sometimes the absurdity of the things that we get into the things over which we fight the way we do it and even if it's just a glimmer a smile on the side on the corner I know they know that I know that we know and we and it creates that complicity and it invites a new possibility new possibility new possibility some people may be resisting the humor they like they want to hold on to the seriousness seriousness seriousness yes if you want to hold on to righteousness to I am right to victimization to I have the view that is the right only view that matters and only my perception and my experience is the truth.

Then you are in a polarized system that is rigid and unyielding. Humor and play is possibility. Possibility invites change. Change invites healing. invites healing. invites healing. Yes. Yes. Yes. I want to ask you a few more questions then I want us to play your game for a little bit. Um, over the last two years, was there anything that came up for you personally in your own inner world that you noticed, oh, there's something like we talked about it, it created a lot of pressure for people if there were things that that came out.

Was there anything for you that you were like, huh, there's something I I still need to work on myself or need to continue the healing journey of that came out in the last couple years with being at home and, you know, not doing things the way they used to be. to be. to be. I will answer this in two ways. The way that I experienced the the pandemic. So in the first in the beginning right after I left you I went back to New York and I went in lockdown lockdown lockdown and basically it was in the you know was suddenly kind of I got gripped with a bit of a panic and primarily because I thought I can't catch this thing because if I catch it I am now suddenly considered elderly.

I'm past 60 plus 35. plus 35. plus 35. Yeah. Yeah. for the pandmic had changed. It suddenly shifted overnight. I became elderly. And that meant I wasn't sure if we entered the hospital, me or Jack, that we will pass the triage. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. And he's older than me. And I got really, really scared. I had a lot of post-traumatic stress symptoms that are very much connected to the Holocaust and to my family experience. That sense that overnight this whole life I have built could just disappear like this and it was irrational.

I was terrified that Jack would die to the point you wanted to know about humor in my relationship. So we have it in the middle of construction at the time and the workers and at the point he comes to me and he says I asked the workers to create to to dig a hole in the garden. the garden. the garden. I said oh yeah why? He said so that when I die you can just roll me right in. Oh my god. Wow. Talk about humor. And I but I cracked up because it he showed me, girl, you gripped in fear.

And I just started to laugh and I just realized, no, no, no, he's not there. Because I was ready to stop construction. I said, we're not making this. this. this. No one can come here within a thousand yards of a No, no, it's more like we will not survive. No way. I was I really when it's post-traumatic, it's it's trauma is the word, right? So I really was very very very scared and his humor diffused it for me and just brought me back and said we're continuing to build.

We're going to live. We're going to survive. Don't worry girl. It's like so this was one and it slowly you know I entered into the into the the the long term of the pandemic and it dissolved and that's when I understood and this came out of that. that. that. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. I missed my friends. I missed my dinner parties. I missed intimacy and I created a host of different group experiences, pods. I had a movie club. That's cool. That's cool. That's cool. On Zoom on three continents.

Oh, that's cool. I had a book club. I had a yoga group that met four times a week still till now. That is over two continents. continents. continents. Wow, that's cool. And I had a hiking group. I had a swimming group in the summer. And then one day I said, I need to play and I need to continue to have conversations where I learned something new. I was so freaking tired of talking about the pandemic all the time. Sure. Sure. Sure. And I said, I'm going to create a game, not having any idea of what this thing was going to become and and what it represented.

I just thought, I want to do something creative and I'm going to I want people to be able to talk about something that isn't just like, you know, when you live six months like this in lockdown, you begin to have the same conversation. Yeah, of course. So, I just thought, how am I going to make couples make couples make couples and have fun, get get energized, you know, be curious about each other, talk about something else. else. else. And I thought we need to play because play is a container.

Play gives you the possibility to take risks, to talk about things that you would otherwise not talk about because it's under the guise of play. Play allows you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask. Certainly not to your partner because we get more shy with the people that we live with than with strangers sometimes. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. You know, you're more daring to ask sometimes questions to strangers you're never going to see again or people you've just met than the person you live with for decades on end.

Interesting. I just so play became very very central. When when you play you still you still are able to lift yourself from the ground and it means you can enter the world of imagination and where the rules are different and every child at this moment you know around the Ukrainian crisis you can see when kids are still able to play it is the moments when they are not in hyper vigilance. vigilance. vigilance. It is an essential survival skill. Yes. Yes. Yes. Underrated. Underrated. Underrated. And from that place came that's great.

that's great. that's great. Where should we begin? It's one of the key things in relationship and in life is what I'm hearing you say. It's essential. It's essential. It's essential. Now, here's another side question before we get into this. Play is problem solving. Play is creativity. Play is uh uh risk-taking. Play is um spontaneity. It's all these things. It's the other side of fear. Next up, I speak with Jillian Terki, who is a renowned relationship expert on why understanding your own psychology is the key to attracting the right type of person for your life.

In order to know who is right for you, you have to understand your own psychology. You have to understand yourself. You have to understand where your vulnerabilities lie, where your weaknesses lie, where your strengths are. um the trauma that you've been through. Uh you know, if you've been if you've had a rough go at life, then you're going to need someone who makes you feel really accepted and safe and doesn't judge you for that. Um it doesn't give you a hall pass to to bring that trauma in.

But the reality is our past is our past. And so understanding who's the right partner for you is not only understanding your psychology, but getting really real with yourself because people will say, "Oh, I just wish I was this person. I'm really attracted to outdoorsy people and I just wish I was more outdoorsy. Oh, I could be more outdoorsy. No, you have to be really real with yourself. You hate the outdoors. You might be really attracted to someone who likes the outdoors, but sorry, Charlie. Like, that's not going to be right be right for you.

You can't sleep in a tent for three nights with bugs. That's not you. It's not you. You got to be super real and like that person who you're really attracted to who does that, it's not going to work long term. It's not going to work long term. You could have a fun fling, Mhm. but it's not going to work long term. So really knowing yourself and honoring yourself is how you choose well. well. well. Yeah. That could be the summer fling. But then it's like if you're with the outdoorsy guy who that's his he wants that to be his life.

Six months in the mountains. mountains. mountains. Exactly. You're like, "Well, I'm trying to create a stable home with kids in the future." future." future." Exactly. It's just it doesn't work. Doesn't mean they're not great people. It's just not going to work. It's just not what you want for your vision of your life. Exactly. And people have to get really real with themselves and they don't and then they end up paying for that. What's been the biggest mistakes you've brought to relationships that personally that you've later had to realize and take accountability for?

Oh, okay. Yeah. I was responsible for this or this or I could have shown up differently. Yeah. Um for me definitely has been in the past codependency. And what I what it looks like is it's funny, you know, relationships are funny. I mean, I've had some really beautiful relationships and I've had some not so beautiful relationships. And that's why certain people are going to bring out certain things in you whereas others are not. But I've definitely brought codependency and low selfworth to relationships like um depending on my partner too much for my happiness.

my happiness. my happiness. Really? Really? Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What happens when we depend on our partner to make us happy? Um catastrophe. So here's here's the paradox. I think that we need to be with someone who wants to make us happier and that we want to make we want to add value to each other's lives. We want to make the path easier, but no one can walk our path but ourselves. And so what happens is that when and it's unconscious, you know, and it's part of it is also conditioning.

It's like be with someone who makes you happy this or that. You know, the problem is that if you don't feel at least mostly whole, you know, we all have our things that we're dealing with, but if you don't if you feel really fragmented and you think a relationship or another person is going to actually bring all the pieces together, then what's going to happen is that you're going to be really disappointed because then you're relying on another fallible, flawed human, flawed human, flawed human, imperfect human, imperfect human.

and you're going to have all these expectations and your your shoulders are going to be crushed by the weight of failed expectations constantly. constantly. constantly. Um but you know so yeah I've done that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um not really standing on my own two feet emotionally. feet emotionally. feet emotionally. Um, I have brought stress to a relationship and not and not my self-awareness around stress to the point where I've closed or Yeah. where I've closed, you know, not been receptive to love, guarded. guarded. guarded. Yeah.

Guarded or just tense and stressed and just totally um expecting to be loved anyway. loved anyway. loved anyway. And it's it's you know relationship is so filled with paradox. It's like yes they should actually contribute to your happiness but you also have to know how to make yourself happy. No you don't have to love yourself completely for to be in a relationship but yes you have to love yourself in some level you know or you learn to love yourself in a relationship but also you can't enter a relationship hating yourself.

There's just so many paradoxes and I would just say that people just need to find sort of the balance for themselves and like the reality is that we should be adding value to each other's lives. We should want to want to want to root for our partner and we want to see them win and we want to see like their path be just like paved with gold and we will do anything to help them but we can't actually pave the path path for them and that's the key difference and we can't expect that from someone right I think that's you're speaking my language right now because you know over the last couple years of doing my own healing journey.

I was just like if I enter a relationship again, right? It was kind of like if you know because I was just like I'd rather be happy and on my own. No, but I love intimacy and connections. It's like okay, I want it but it's like not at the expense of like suffering. Yes. Yes. Yes. And abandoning my my values and my vision and my lifestyle, my needs. Yes. Yes. Yes. But I was like, I just want to make sure that I'm always taking care of it and loving myself and taking care of myself.

Yes. and creating my own joy and happiness and fulfillment independent of a relationship. a relationship. a relationship. Never needing someone, but the way they show up can just add to that joy. Yes. Add to that happiness. And I want to be in a relationship with someone that is a joyful person. It's kind of like their baseline. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because they've processed stuff. They've been on the healing journey. They're they're whole. Not perfect, but whole and and and continuing to improve. But they're just their baseline is joy.

Yeah. When someone's baseline is joy, you don't have to do something to make them joyful. They are joyful. Yes. Yes. Yes. And so it's getting your place to a state of peace and joy and fulfillment in your own life so that you don't need the person to make you happy. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And then you're not going to self-abandon, I think, or diminish your self-worth in the relationship. If someone's someone's someone's abusive or acting out of character consistently, you're not going to stay in that.

You're gonna be like, "Well, that doesn't work for me." And that's really the key point because honestly, what's epidemic in terms of what I see personally is just low self-esteem and people, it's sort of like two camps. I see people either being selfish and not appreciating their partner, partner, partner, not giving enough to their partner, not giving enough or I see the people tolerating too much BS, BS, BS, right? right? right? And so to the people who tolerate too much, it's like you something you have to do something to raise your self-esteem, something because the what people tolerate out there is what I've tolerated.

It's it's unbelievable actually. But part of that is also because people are so afraid to be alone and they're afraid to start over and the time invested with that last person. Exactly. Love your life single. You can really love your life single but also really want a relationship. I don't want to discourage. I think that life is better in a good relationship. It just is. And and getting love from a partner and sharing and having that exchange is is really profound. But it but you know you also have to give up your preferences to be in a relationship, relationship, relationship, right?

right? right? You know, like I tell single people all the time like you want to lie in your bed diagonally. Like go for it. You like all that secret single behavior, enjoy it because when you're in a relationship and you're living with someone, you can't necessarily do that. But you have to really, like you said, being in the position where you'd rather be single than just in something subpar. That is an amazing position to be in. Yeah, it's huge. It's huge. It's huge. It's huge. Are you in a relationship right now?

I'm actually not, which is wild. Um I mean, I guess it's not that wild. I, you know, so the whole reason why I do this is that I taught yoga for 20 years. And so yoga is like the probably the most important thing in my life other than people in my life. And I had a really difficult marriage that only lasted two years. It was like actually how long were you together for before? Four years. Well, we were together two years prior to that. And interesting, this is an interesting story.

So, I would say 90% was perfect before we got married. But the 10% that wasn't was so so profound. And yeah, I felt seen, safe, loved, adored. I adored him. We we had amazing rapport. We laughed hysterically. I really like it when I make people laugh. If you can understand, I have a really dark, nasty sense of humor. So, if you can understand my sense of humor, I immediately feel very connected to you, right? right? right? And so, we really connected and but there were things that um that I would never tolerate.

And this is something like we're cool like he things not working out with him and then my mother died. So, I went through a lot of tragedy to get to the place where I am now, now, now, but I'm very cool with him. In fact, I have a joke that I should probably that he should probably send me a bill because I have this whole career based on this relationship that I had with him. So, him. So, him. So, the wisdom you gained from this. Oh, so I'm actually very grateful.

But there was an interesting story which is that we went to um we were about eight months into our relationship and I felt totally in love. We were both totally in love and I don't know what triggered this cuz this was a while ago and I I just don't think about it just don't I just don't think about it anymore. Just it's not traumatic for me. Um but something triggered him and he had a proiv proclivity towards avoidance and I had the proclivity towards anxiety and my father was very very avoidant and shut down.

So here we are. Ancient and avoidant is not a good combination. combination. combination. It's not it's not a good combination. So, it's a bad combination, but so he was shut down over something that I have absolutely something that was not warranted. warranted. warranted. And we went to this show called his own traumas. Totally his own stuff. This was not something that I mean I can take a lot of responsibility and have, but this is not something that I did. It was something that he interpreted. So, we went to this show called Sleep No More.

And I don't know if you heard of it, but it was like a thing in New York, and it was really, really crazy and really cool. And you get there and they give you like these masks like from scream basically like these crazy masks and so you be even though if you go with someone it's a very you kind of get separate they separate you rooms. So it's a very solitary experience and everyone's behind a mask so you're having your own experience but on our way there I could he was in what would be the first of many of like these moods where he would shut down and I didn't know what was going on back then.

I didn't have the courage to say what is going on like speak up like what's h did I do something let's talk about it now about let's talk about it now it wouldn't even yeah you didn't have the tools then yeah I didn't have the tools and and I didn't have the self-esteem then the courage to speak all of it and so when we went he was totally shut down we were separated but there were times where you would recognize the person because you know what they're wearing and I would be so psyched to connect with them and he would pretend like he didn't see me.

It was like a total stonewalling and I was so incredibly upset and all I could think about is I got to get this relationship back on track. Like I have to like make this better from that one day from that from that one night because he was stone. I knew that I was like his feelings changed about me. I have to make sure that I that whatever it is that triggered him doesn't trigger him again. So all this stuff came up. So you interpreted that too.

Yes. Exactly. So I so I got really anxious you know I low self-esteem I don't want to or like it's not that it wasn't perfect it was really bad if so in other words if I were to encounter that today that relationship would have ended that day you like hey this doesn't work for me yeah yeah yeah without question that actually wouldn't even been a conversation it just would have ended because I would have known from a value system perspective and also from what is good for me that that is absolutely we can we can have fights we can have disagree agreements, but that is not allowed in my world.

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Fastest based on UCLA speed test intelligence data. Second half of 2025. All rights reserved. In this third section, I speak with my good friend Matthew Hussy, who is a leading dating expert on why it's so difficult to break the negative relationship patterns and what you need to do instead. Why do women sabotage when there's a good man in front of them? the question can be applied equally across the genders and and we all I I know I've I've sabotaged I've sabotaged I've sabotaged uh one potentially wonderful relationships before.

Um almost did it with my the relationship that you know turned out to be my marriage. I almost like screwed that up and and we have to look at what's why do you think you almost screwed it up? We get into these patterns where we chase the wrong things. I can't take credit for that phrase. My wife Audrey wife Audrey wife Audrey loves that phrase and I got addicted to it too because it's so it's such a great phrase. phrase. phrase. this idea that if you chase the wrong things, it might be fun sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, but but but until you start chasing the right things that chasing the wrong things will always loop you back to where you started.

And you know I I got to the point as a single person where I realized this is not as fun as it you know this has become a kind of drug of its own and what am I really chasing here? Does it leave me feeling better at the end of it? Does it leave me feeling more anxious? In my case it actually left me feeling more anxious. It left me feeling worse about myself. about myself. about myself. Um, Um, Um, and I, and I, and I, you know, I think in some ways the the longer we take to find our person, I don't believe in the one, but I do believe in our person because this is a very different thing.

But the longer we take, I think some of us, we have to now justify all the people we said no to because if I'm going to go for this person, then why did I say no to those people? They were great in these ways, too. And so, we kind of we're chasing this idea we have in our mind of something instead of being present with who is in front of us and and what's actually unfolding in front of us. What I wasn't paying attention to at the beginning of meeting my wife was that I felt I felt like I was home.

And that isn't that's a that's a subtly different feeling. different feeling. different feeling. I felt like I was home. I I could truly be myself. be myself. be myself. I felt genuinely accepted and not judged. And it was a kind of an unfamiliar feeling. I don't know that I was fully ready ready ready for that feeling. Almost felt unsafe because it was so safe. safe. safe. Yeah, it felt unsafe. We had an argument at the beginning of our relationship where we weren't even in a relationship yet, I don't think.

But we we had an argument where she started talking about some other guy. Uhoh. Uhoh. Uhoh. And it got and it got under my skin and then I was an about it. Like I was not. You weren't even committed yet, huh? You weren't even in a committed relationship, relationship, relationship, were we? were we? were we? Oh, you were. You were, she said. Yeah. Yeah. She started talking about someone and I and I it got like it my ego flared up. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. My ego flared up and then I started being really cold and quiet.

I didn't say anything for ages. And she was the one making all the conversation. And at a certain point, she was like, "What's going on?" And I was like, "Nothing." Cuz what am I going to tell her? I'm not going to tell her at this early stage that I got insecure about a a guy I don't even know. And that that somehow on some deep level has made me feel threatened. And how now I feel like I could get hurt in this. and it's robbed me of some kind of power that I must have been holding on.

I'm not going to tell you all of that because now you even have even more potential to hurt me. I'm not going to give you all of that. Now, Now, Now, I once had a relationship where I told someone like I I I was I I I debated all night whether to tell an insecurity that I was feeling really really really and then I did at the end of the night. This was different relationship. At the end of the night, I spoke in insecurity and she looked at me and she said, "I find that I I" I went, "What?" She goes, "I just didn't know that you felt like that.

I find that unattractive." Oh. Oh. Oh. It was the wor It was one of the most horrendous. horrendous. horrendous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Like, Like, it's your biggest fear. Yeah. I was like, it for me, I didn't want to say it. I wasn't gonna say it. say it. say it. So then I was like, why did I say it? Vulnerability is strength. This doesn't work for men. Be vulnerable. Be vulnerable. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I find that unattractive. That's why you have so manyed up guys in the world now and they follow othered up guys guys guys and they're all in their little circle of doing everything wrong because they got hurt.

got hurt. got hurt. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. They're hurt. They're just hurt people who have decided that the best way to deal with that hurt is to armor up. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And to hate everyone and to hate women and think that you're all against us and and And look, I had a little moment in that moment where I was like, "Never doing that again." Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's the last time I ever do that. And then I met Audrey and when when I felt insecure about this this person, I was quiet and passive and then passive aggressive and quiet and and she eventually like ringed it out of me because she's too perceptive.

And she nothing gets by this woman. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And I eventually after her having to drag it out of me, I eventually said it. And then I hated that I said it because I had that thought in my head. Well, there you go. And then so she she got it out of me. And then I went cold all over again because now I was like ashamed. Really? Really? Really? Why did I say that? Now she's going to think now I'm not going to I'm not that attractive guy.

I'm not Mr. Alpha. I'm not blah blah blah. All of this is happening. It's not like I'm verbalizing this to myself, but this is what's happening. happening. happening. And I'm supposed to not seem threatened. I'm supposed to be bulletproof. I'm not supposed to get threatened by another person like that. And then I said that it had like I was like I wish I hadn't said that cuz now you're going to think this. And she was like what? She was like oh I'm like I love firstly it doesn't change how attracted I am to you at all.

I'm so attracted to you. My god. And And And the fact that you told me that it's just I love it because I get to know I know you better. you better. you better. I get to know you better. It doesn't change anything. It just I love knowing you better. And if something's on your mind, I want you to share it with me because I want to be able to like talk, you know, I want to share why you don't need to worry about that. M we had to go through so much that day to get to that little moment and in a hundred other early dating phases with other people that would have been the end of the relationship.

That would have been it because someone would have not got it out of me and I would have never said anything and I just would have held on to it and it would have eroded the relationship or they get it out of me but then I don't feel safe with that person from their reaction and so I now back off or you know there's so many ways that moment can go wrong and in this relationship what was normally a moment where it would go wrong was a very healing moment for for me me me and she's had her own moments like that and we chase these things that feel off.

Next up, I speak with Bea Voce, a trained coup's counselor on the importance of understanding yours and your partner's trauma and working together to build a healthy and healing relationship. relationship. relationship. Conflict without repair is just pain over and over and over again. Yeah. But then conflict with repair is healing. I I actually really like thinking about it this way. So you each come into the relationship with all of your relationships behind you. So it's your relationship with your caregivers. It's the relationship with the person who broke your heart or the 12 people who broke your heart before that.

It's the pain that you did to other people. And it's the pain that other people did to you, caused to you. You walk into your relationship with all of the unhealed pain and you basically walk to your partner and you say, "Heal me. "Heal me. "Heal me. Here it is." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here it Yeah. Yeah. But we don't know that's what we're saying. That's not why we get into that's not why we think we're getting into relationships. But that to me is when we're talking when when I get a little more kind of spiritual and woowoo and esoteric about it.

I deeply believe that we get into relationship to heal the parts of ourselves that nobody else could heal before. And when we find the relationship that is the one we decide to to to basically put on the altar as this is where I'm going to do my work. This is where I'm then what you're saying as each partner is I am signing up to be here to heal to help you heal the parts of yourself that nobody else that came before me could help you heal.

Like I am I'm up for that task and vice versa. It's to me that lens is it's a gift that we give each other when we sign up for relationships and say it doesn't matter how perfect I want you to be. I know you come with unhealed wounding and I have the exact recipe that's probably going to bump up against those wounds, but if we're responsible enough and we do our work enough that what I also can do is support in the healing of those wounds.

wounds. wounds. Yes. I heard Gabber Mate said that if it's hysterical, it's historical. And if someone is reacting based out of a trigger or something and they're reacting hysterically to a situation or an environment that even isn't a physical threat but feels to them like there's a physical threat, there's some type of history behind it that's causing them to be hysterical or reactive in whatever situation. And what I'm hearing you say is that healthy conflict takes courage is what I'm hearing you say. And what what I lacked for most of my life in every intimate relationship I was in was courage.

For most of my life, I would stuff it down. I was in the second phase, the the power struggle phase for most of my my relationship life. And I was, you know, I'd get into relationship for two years, three years, four years, and just kind of repeat the cycle thinking it was the person I was with and get in a new relationship and kind of repeat the cycle of phase one to phase two. And you're in phase two forever and you're trying to get into interdependence, right?

But it never felt like it for me until this uh my my marriage now. And what I'm hearing you also say is that you're not getting into a relationship with a human being. You're getting in a relationship with their nervous system. And if their nervous system is wounded and irregulated or deregulated, then that's what you're getting in a relationship with is how someone perceives everything in the world. And if they're traumatized or if they have thin skin by every little thing that you say or do or don't do, that's the relationship you're getting into.

Not the person and how they look, but what's inside their nervous system and how they respond to their environment. You know, I often say like if we were to go on first dates and be like, "All right, what when you're when you're just off the rocker, what do you like?" Like when when you're super triggered, when you're a 10 out of 10, when you're a five out of 10, what do you like? What what are we up to? There's a bear inside of me. There's like a bear that wants to destroy if I'm like not regulated, you know?

It's like I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, "Let me just take on the world, you know? It's like a bear." Same. I can get both. I can Same. I can get both. I can get loud and I can get super I can get super quiet and just like you don't you don't even feel my heart. Like I can go to both of those places and there's and they're not they're not places I'm proud of by the way. But we and and by the way, no matter how much work we do, these pieces live inside of us.

It's not that the little kid ever goes away. It's that when you start to understand what your nervous system is like when it gets disregulated like, "Oh, I I know that my my chest tightens or I start to talk really really fast or I start to sweat or or I it's may maybe it doesn't feel so physiological, but I can start to feel you become my to I can start to feel you become my enemy. I'm like trying to build my case against you." Right? So, like we've all kind of been here in one way or another.

When I begin to understand what my particular brand of dysregulation looks like, then I can start taking responsibility for when I'm going there. And that adaptive part, that young because that's really what it is. It's the part of ourselves that's just trying to fight for keep me safe. Keep me safe. We can sort of do this thing where we like put the kid in the back. It's like, okay, you're five. I don't want you to go away, but you also can't drive. Yeah. And this is another thing that Terry talks about which I think is also really smart which is like you put the kid in the back and you got to give the kid kid love but the kid needs a boundary.

Like that's what kids need. They need love but they need boundaries. So you put it you put the kid in the back and you're like hey kid I got this. You don't need to be the and they generally don't want to be the ones to be in the fight anyway. They're like oh great hands off the wheel. I can take a nap or play Legos in the back. Um, and then and then the more regulated part of you can start to come online, but you've got to take care of the part that's disregulated.

Um, disregulated. Um, disregulated. Um, generally speaking, generally speaking, generally speaking, you're either better at autoregulating, so regulating on your own, or co-regulating, like you need somebody to help you regulate. And we want to get better at the other. That's generally what we need. I I fall into the co-regulation category. Like I really it feels like at times I need my wife to help me like I need her to help calm me down. like I can't and that's been a huge huge huge but if you attract an independent person and they're like hey I don't I'm an independent like get away you're you're clinging some to someone who wants to be alone alone alone but that but that's also where the healing comes into play right so because I have been like save me save me from my own emotions that I don't feel like I can handle on my own and she's like that doesn't actually work what do I have to build the skill of autoregulating I have to build the part of myself that understands understands how to take care of myself.

And probably the more you do that, the more she wants to come in and co-regulate as opposed to she needs to do it do it do it 100%. 100%. 100%. The School of Greatness is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb. The start of a new year always feels like a reset for me. It's time to reflect, set intentions, and plan what the year ahead is going to look like. And Martha and I both love traveling quite a bit throughout the year, visiting family and carving out time to recharge.

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And whether you travel often or just once in a while, hosting your home on Airbnb can be an easy way to bring in some extra cash during times you're already gone as well. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host. In this final section, I spoke with Mel Robbins about the key to her lasting marriage of over 26 plus years, and she breaks down the core shift that has helped it continue to grow. I think like honestly people have been asking me a lot about uh just my marriage because I've been in I've been married for 26 years.

Like how do you go the distance? How do you go the distance? Um, distance? Um, distance? Um, I feel that one of the things that I also got wrong is I didn't remind myself enough enough enough what a kind and caring person Chris is. M and that and that and that I I I you know I I am guilty of also like attacking Chris when I've been really unhappy and you know I will unpack a lot of this stuff because you know Chris and I have been in like intense therapy for the last intense meaning it's been intensely awesome.

awesome. awesome. Yeah. But it's profound how much how much how much my coping mechanism with stress was the exact opposite of Chris's. So when I feel stressed out or anxious, Lewis, I go into hyperdrive. I like go go go because I feel safer when I'm busy. Okay. my husband goes into the corner and thinks, right? right? right? And what ends up happening over time is your relationships your relationships your relationships are an opportunity to to to truly heal the that doesn't work if you're willing to work together on it.

And so what happened over time for us is the more I became successful, the more I did, the more I was solving problems and taking care of this and 15 steps ahead, the more it reinforced to Chris, well, she doesn't need me. And what if I were to make the dinner reservation, she's going to just probably have made a different one anyway. And meanwhile, I'm over here in my emotional corner going, why is nobody planning a birthday party for me? Why am I the one that's always like doing everything?

When is somebody else going to come and Chris is over here going, I'm not needed? Yeah. Like I've tried, but then you just you say you don't want it or you change the plans or so it's like after a while is like why am I going to try to do anything? anything? anything? Correct. And here's where we make a major mistake. major mistake. major mistake. We have a breakdown that's at the surface level. So I'll give you an example. This is a really dumb example, but I think every couple might be able to relate to this.

Sure. So, uh, you know how you get a lot of cardboard boxes? cardboard boxes? cardboard boxes? Yes. Yes. Yes. From Amazon. From Amazon. From Amazon. Yeah. Boxes. Yeah. Boxes. Yeah. Boxes. Amazon. Boxes that arrive at your house or your apartment. Everybody now orders stuff online. So, I get boxes. I unpack the boxes. And then I have this little thing where I'm like, I might need to ship it back. So, I don't You keep the box. Yep. By the door. Yeah. I go throw it away right away.

Well, Chris does, too. Yeah. And he also does not want the box to go into the garage. garage. garage. We need to slice it down and flatten it, recycle it or get rid of Yes. But you have to flatten it for the garbage folks up in southern Vermont to pick it up. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. So I would make a Jenga puzzle right at the top like right by the door of the garage. And when Chris would walk in because he's asked me several times, can you please just freaking slice and flatten the boxes and take it out to the recycling?

That's where it goes. And I have this intention that, okay, I'll do that tomorrow because after I like look at this stuff, I might ship it back and I might need the box, right? right? right? And then the truth is I hate flattening boxes. boxes. boxes. I don't want to flatten boxes. Sure. Sure. Sure. And so I don't do it. And every time Chris sees the Jenga puzzle of boxes, he silently feels like I think he's my maid. maid. maid. And at a surface level, and this is what everybody does at a surface level, we argue about the boxes.

At a deeper level that's not getting resolved, is the fact that my partner has asked me to do something, but he's asked me to do something at sort of a physical surface level. He has not said to me. When I see that, Mel, it actually triggers something from my childhood. My parents were never home. Nobody came to my games. I was a latch key kid. When I would walk in that door hoping somebody was home and I opened up the door and there was nobody there, nobody there, nobody there, I felt like my needs did not matter.

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And when I see the boxes stacked, and I've asked you twice to do that, and you still don't do it, it's re-triggering that. And over the course of his childhood, it didn't matter what he said. The behavior of the adults didn't change. And so, we step into these relationships with people, with friends, and with, you know, your lover, and it becomes literally a magnifier of the things you have not resolved. Like you're so unconscious to your patterns. I'm thinking cardboard boxes. He's childhood trauma.

childhood trauma. childhood trauma. There are other ones. He's not talking to me. I'm childhood trauma. Like it's like all of that gets magnified by cardboard boxes or the you're fighting about on the surface. And so knowing that you have a place to talk about something minimizes the number of times that you like even get upset with each other. But I want to go back to something you said that I think is the hundred million dollar question. Give it to me. Not question, hundred million dollar answer.

answer. answer. It was my number three and I said it in the opposite way that you said number six. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. I said if I could go back and give myself advice 28 years ago when I met my husband Chris, what would it be? And the third thing I said is always remind yourself that he is a kind and loving person who just wants to be loved. That's all we all are. Okay. You said, "I'm never going to be angry with you. I'm not going to take my anger out on you." Now, listen.

I'm not perfect and maybe one day I get frustrated and I react. I'm not saying that's my only quickly clean it up. And I take responsibility. Yes. Yes. Yes. 100% responsibility. So, well, yeah, I'm not saying I'm trying to be perfect here, but So, what I have learned in the past two years that has been profound for me to be whole and to be able to truly stand in full power, right? right? right? And what has been profound in my marriage is that at the heart of all mental health issues for me, at the heart of all your interpersonal issues with anybody else is your own inability to handle uncomfortable feelings.

That's it. That's it. And I have the just disgusting and awful toxic behavior of expelling my uncomfortable emotions at people. Mhm. and my inability to tolerate stress or disappointment or frustration or expectations not being met or hurt feelings that creates this sort of disruption in my body and all of this stuff. It over over the years like I would expel it at people. I' I'd have a terrible tone of voice. I would blame it on my anxiety. And I didn't know any better because I didn't understand that healing actually doesn't start up here.

It actually starts in your body and your ability to not only tolerate emotions, but to regulate the way that you feel when you experience emotion. And my husband has the opposite way. He withdraws. When he feels painful things in his body, he withdraws. And so the thing that has changed everything for me, Lewis, is truly realizing that, you know, I the second I started to dig out all the uncomfortable feelings and that had it happened or anything else and I learned how to sit with it, I learned how to give myself the assurance and the love that maybe I didn't get as a kid, that I didn't experience in other relationships.

that I wasn't experiencing that moment. Learning how to do that for myself, learning how to regulate my nervous system, how to tolerate the awful stuff that happens to all of us in life, that has been the biggest j game changer of my relationship because I don't get angry at Chris. I hope you found this master class on relationships supportive on your journey to either finding your perfect relationship, your perfect person, or how to improve the relationship that you're currently in right now. Comment below your greatest takeaway.

Which section did you enjoy the most? What resonated with you the most? And always, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, you matter. It's a beautiful journey, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. If you are looking to manifest a new reality in your life, if you're looking to create a new dream and attract it and draw it to you faster, then you need to understand this concept. Manifestation is not about wishing for