Heal Your Past Relationships & Find Love [MASTERCLASS] EP 1335

Today’s Masterclass episode is all about healing & relationships. Four experts on love teach you the basic & advanced steps of how to heal from your past relationships in order to discover the deepest levels of love. In this episode,Matthew Hussey, best-selling author and internationally recognized speaker, explains the significance of communication and why it’s sometimes best to not trust your instincts. Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist, author, and professor at the University of Toronto, teaches how to find what you truly desire in a relationship and how to address awkward conflicts. Esther Perel, psychotherapist and best-selling author, shares methods for how to overcome your fear of asking for help and the five things that the pandemic changed for every relationship. Faith Jenkins, attorney and author, shares lessons that everyone should know before entering marriage as well as how to stop being afraid of a relationship failing. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1335Full episodes:Matthew Hussey: https://link.chtbl.com/944-podJordan Peterson: https://link.chtbl.com/1093-podEsther Perel: https://link.chtbl.com/1291-podFaith Jenkins: https://link.chtbl.com/1221-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Esther Perel?

  All the unknowns are filtering onto your relationships. And the relationship becomes the holder of all that stress. It's not just people didn't get along, it's that.

• 0:13Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:36Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

• 0:53Lewis Howes?

  Do people even really want to stand out to have a committed long-term relationship? Or they more just, they say they want the commitment, but their actions don't back it with just constantly being surface level or constantly being a part of the noise as opposed to trying to stand out. It's like they might try to, especially with guys, it's like, okay. Maybe it seems like more women want to be committed than more guys want to be committed.

• 1:21Matthew Hussey?

  I, well, that's a tricky one. I, most people, I believe, who think they are evolved enough for a relationship or not.

• 1:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:35Matthew Hussey?

  And for a long time, by the way, I count myself in that category. Where I thought I was, I really thought, there were times in my life where I really thought I was a great, I was a great guy. I wasn't, I was, it wasn't that I was ever a nasty person. I was never a mean person. I was never a. That wasn't the great partner I thought I was. It's not like I, you know, there are times in my life where I thought, God, I'm just, I'd just be a great partner to someone. And I was not ready to be a great partner to someone because I think the first time you really give yourself to something, really commit yourself to not just your own happiness and your own needs.

• 2:18Matthew Hussey?

  Cause that's what most people talk about when they talk about a relationship is their needs, their happiness. Right? How good it feels to be in a relationship is about them. But it's not about seeing someone else, truly seeing someone else. And understanding who they are and understanding what their needs are and supporting them and their happiness and their goals.

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  It's a great relationship when you stop thinking about your needs and you just say, I'm gonna give to this person and look at them from a place of understanding and wanna bring them so much joy and fulfillment and not expecting return, but hopefully the other person is saying the same thing to, to, about you.

• 3:03Matthew Hussey?

  Well, yes and no. There, there's a lot of, there are a lot of people who on that idea, that ethos have lived a very masochistic life for a long time.

• 3:15Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 3:17Matthew Hussey?

  That, by the way, you, what you just described could describe one of two things. One beautiful, one terrible. What you just described could either be an extraordinary relationship with two givers or it could describe unrequited love. It could describe the person who is giving, giving, giving, giving, giving to someone and playing the martyr in their own relationship. They keep ignoring me. They keep, you know, not meeting my, my needs. They keep being selfish. They keep, but I am just gonna show up and be my best and love them and give my all. And one day they will turn around to meet me in that.

• 4:03Matthew Hussey?

  Many, many people have, have caused tremendous suffering to themselves and, and wasted a lot of good years.

• 4:12Lewis Howes?

  So is it both give to yourself, make sure you're asking for what you need, but also giving?

• 4:17Matthew Hussey?

  It's I, it's a combination of respecting what your core needs are.

• 4:27Matthew Hussey?

  What, what do I need? Like, when it really comes down to it, what's my standard for what I need?

• 4:34Matthew Hussey?

  Now, how exactly someone meets that standard is, that's where the messiness of relationships comes in. Cause you say, I wanna be respected and then someone does something and you go, I don't feel respected. But they go, but that doesn't mean a lack of respect to me. So now we have a whole conversation on the execution of a standard. Oh my gosh. And different definitions of what meets that standard. That's, that's where the confusion comes in and that's where we have to have some really loving, cooperative conversations to figure out, am I, you know, am I being, this is one of the hardest parts of a relationship. Am I being reasonable in asking for what I'm asking for or is this my insecurity speaking? Oh wow.

• 5:18Matthew Hussey?

  You know, am I, which one is talking? And sometimes we're so close, we don't even know. That's the danger. That's, by the way, I see one of the most valuable jobs I can do for people in my work is not to be a smarter voice than they are. Cause people, people can be great. They can, when it comes to their friends or people around them or whatever, they can be very smart. But to be an objective voice outside of their drunken haze. Mm-hmm. Cause we're so close to something, we get, we're, we're not sober. And now we don't have logical answers to questions, cause someone's, we get to the point where arguing about something, I don't even know if I'm right.

• 6:00Matthew Hussey?

  I don't know if the thing I'm saying is, is if I'm being the insecure one or if I'm being the reasonable one. And sometimes we leave a situation and we go. God, I was insecure. And sometimes we leave and we go, I can't believe I let someone convince me I was crazy.

• 6:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:16Matthew Hussey?

  They like, they were the one that was doing the wrong thing and they convinced me that I was nuts.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  So how do we step out of that emotional feeling where we're feeling overwhelmed, they're disrespected, or hurt, or sad, or like their relationship didn't meet an expectation, or communication was off, and we're in it and we're communicating and we're both frustrated? How do you step out and look at it from a different point of view? So that you just don't keep repeating that conversation over and over. You don't hurt it further.

• 6:45Matthew Hussey?

  Yeah, I, I think there's a, we have to have a really healthy combination of always questioning ourselves and, and saying, where is this coming from for me? And would it really hurt me to compromise on this standard? Is, is, would it be the more loving thing to do to understand this about my partner? But in order to, that, that needs to be combined with a simultaneous respect for ourselves and what we need. And to, I think, go to a situation and say, okay, I want to be the most understanding, compassionate, loving partner I can be, who doesn't inhibit or limit my partner, who supports them, wants them to do great.

• 7:29Matthew Hussey?

  But I also need to recognize that, um, it's not, what was I saying? I lost my train of thought. I need to be the person that can, um, be understanding, what was I saying? Be understanding of my partner.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  You want to be the most understanding of someone else, but you also have to know your own needs.

• 7:52Matthew Hussey?

  Be understanding of someone else, but, oh, that's right. I need to be the person that is understanding of the needs of my partner and what they want. But at the same time, um,

• 8:04Matthew Hussey?

  Love, what was it? Love's my... I need to be understanding of my partner's needs. Ah, that was it. I need to be understanding of my partner's needs, but the context of me being super compassionate and understanding needs to be that I am, um, that this is happening in a loving environment where my partner wants to be my teammate.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:27Matthew Hussey?

  If we're in a situation where our partner isn't showing empathy for us and isn't try, like, if you feel they're not trying to, that we're always coming to that side, that's a problem.

• 8:37Lewis Howes?

  That's tough.

• 8:38Matthew Hussey?

  That's a problem.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  There should be seeing, I see where you're coming from as well, type of energy and communication.

• 8:43Matthew Hussey?

  Exactly.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Not just, I'm not getting what I want, you did this wrong.

• 8:47Matthew Hussey?

  You need to feel you have a teammate.

• 8:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:50Matthew Hussey?

  And a lot of people feel like they're constantly being understanding, but they don't have a teammate on the other side. I'm constantly trying to grow and understand your position, but I don't feel the same from your side. That then becomes a problem.

• 9:05Lewis Howes?

  How do you have a conversation so that it switches or it becomes more of a equal partnership and teammate?

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  If you feel like you're the only one being on the team, how do you get the other person?

• 9:18Matthew Hussey?

  I think we need to communicate a lot about what, about the spirit of the relationship. You know what I mean? Like...

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  Not keeping score.

• 9:27Matthew Hussey?

  Yeah, like pride is a very hard thing to give up in a relationship because we become competitive often very quickly when we feel threatened, when we feel vulnerable, when we feel our partner's done something to hurt us. Now I'm, now how do I score a point? Or how do I?

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:45Matthew Hussey?

  And that's, that's a, just, once you get into that cycle, it's like you're just, it spirals.

• 9:54Matthew Hussey?

  It has to, one person has to be prepared to break that cycle.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 9:59Matthew Hussey?

  I'm not gonna do that game. And I do believe that we have to love the way we wanna be loved. And we have to constantly educate our partner on what it is to love.

• 10:14Matthew Hussey?

  Not from an arrogant place, but we're all, in a, in a sense, both partners are always educating each other. By you do something I don't like, and if I have a loving compassionate response to that. I'm also showing you what I want this to be in reverse.

• 10:31Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:32Matthew Hussey?

  When I do something you don't like.

• 10:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:34Matthew Hussey?

  Here's the response I want.

• 10:35Lewis Howes?

  I'm not attacking you.

• 10:36Matthew Hussey?

  Not a game playing response, not a, you know. Like i- if you see a partner, you're in the early stages of relationship and you feel your partner was really flirting with someone over there. Having a conversation about something that made you feel uncomfortable, but from a loving place and from a kind place and from a place of.

• 10:53Matthew Hussey?

  That made me feel, you know, it, it hurt me to, to see that and not. I'm gonna blame you and I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna get angry, but that, you know, that made me feel uncomfortable. Bringing an energy like that, most people aren't used to that.

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:08Matthew Hussey?

  In a relationship, we're not used to that standard of communication. We're used to doing something and then someone attacks us.

• 11:14Lewis Howes?

  Reacting.

• 11:15Matthew Hussey?

  Yeah, exactly. So I think it's educate, we're constantly educating.

• 11:19Lewis Howes?

  What's it gonna take for us to not react to a situation where we feel hurt or like we. Our expectation wasn't met from our partner and come from that place.

• 11:28Matthew Hussey?

  God, it's so difficult.

• 11:29Lewis Howes?

  Because why, why do we react so much?

• 11:32Matthew Hussey?

  Some, sometimes it's just space, like how I need to take a, a moment to.

• 11:39Matthew Hussey?

  To process something so that I can say, I can have a more evolved response.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  And not react. It's funny, I've been, you know, the relationship I've been in, uh, which is newer in the last five months. I wanna talk about something right away and address it. She doesn't wanna talk. She wants to have space so she doesn't react.

• 11:58Matthew Hussey?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  So she's and she'll say like, I don't wanna get angry at you. I don't wanna yell at you. That's not the type of person I wanna be. So I'd rather just not talk. And then I'm in limbo and I'm like, I just wanna, I just wanna like get to resolve this thing. Let's at least communicate and then we can move on as opposed to holding on to something.

• 12:15Matthew Hussey?

  Yeah.

• 12:15Lewis Howes?

  For half a day or a few hours.

• 12:17Matthew Hussey?

  Yeah. But I, that, here's the thing, space is easy. When you get a text you don't like. You know, or when you see something you don't like from afar and, and you're not gonna see that person for a few hours or till tomorrow. Now you have space to go through. You know, I'm angry. You know, I'm really, really angry. I'm upset. I'm sad, I'm hurt, I feel rejected, I don't feel enough. I, you know, you can kinda cycle through those and then have a couple of sensible conversations with people whose opinions you respect. You and I have done this.

• 12:56Lewis Howes?

  And be like, it's not that big a deal.

• 12:58Matthew Hussey?

  Yeah, you sit down and you go, okay. This thing, I'm feeling this and I'm hurt and I'm this and I'm that and I'm that. And you have a couple of smart voices, either that come from in here.

• 13:08Lewis Howes?

  Which is hard to do.

• 13:09Matthew Hussey?

  Which is very hard to get that objectivity. And, or that come, you know, from just one or two people whose opinions you really respect. Who aren't gonna tell you what you wanna hear.

• 13:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Matthew Hussey?

  Who aren't gonna tell you, you're so right to be, to feel that way.

• 13:24Lewis Howes?

  Get angry, yeah.

• 13:25Matthew Hussey?

  You need someone who is brave enough and close enough to you and smart enough sometimes to recognize. You, I'm concerned that you're overreacting to this.

• 13:35Matthew Hussey?

  And that this, this reaction is not gonna serve you.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:39Matthew Hussey?

  And that I think you need to bring this energy to the conversation. That is extremely valuable. What's hard is when you get information in real time and you're with the person and you're in the same room. And now you're dealing with trying to process and create that, you know. Okay, I need to, I'm trying to get to a more positive place here.

• 14:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Matthew Hussey?

  While being asked to communicate in real time. Well, real time elicits reflex responses and reflex responses are often very harmful to a relationship. It's the, um.

• 14:13Matthew Hussey?

  Reflex responses are often based on instinct. And instinct is very, very dangerous.

• 14:19Lewis Howes?

  False instinct, yeah.

• 14:20Matthew Hussey?

  We're so often told, you know, trust your instincts.

• 14:25Matthew Hussey?

  And that's just not often great advice.

• 14:28Lewis Howes?

  If you're not emotionally intelligent and if you're jealous all the time, then having a jealous instinct isn't necessarily the best thing.

• 14:35Matthew Hussey?

  But some of these instincts are kind of hardwired, right? What we're doing with a lot of our better nature is overcoming certain programming that we have. You know, in a riptide, you get pulled out to sea.

• 14:53Matthew Hussey?

  Your instinct tells you in that moment to swim back to shore against the current. Ignore the riptide, I just need to get back to shore. Which is stronger, you or the current?

• 15:06Lewis Howes?

  The current.

• 15:06Matthew Hussey?

  And it will drown you. You will exhaust and drown before you get back.

• 15:11Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 15:12Matthew Hussey?

  So.

• 15:13Lewis Howes?

  Until it washes you to shore, just like.

• 15:15Matthew Hussey?

  Right, so in that moment, fighting harder won't save you. Thinking clearer will. And thinking more clearly means I need to swim sideways. I need to swim parallel. Let it take me out, swim further or swim parallel, because I'm actually, I'm giving myself a longer journey. But then when I'm out of the current, then I can swim back to shore. Now, that's not, instinct won't get you to do that, because that requires thinking clearly. Instinct will drown you in that moment. And in a relationship, in dating, your instincts will get you killed.

• 15:51Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 15:52Matthew Hussey?

  You know, your instinct says, a woman goes on a date with a guy and has a great time. And says, your instinct says, clear the calendar for the next three months. We found it.

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:05Matthew Hussey?

  We did it, guys.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  We had an amazing night.

• 16:07Matthew Hussey?

  Clear the schedule.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  We were connected on every level.

• 16:10Matthew Hussey?

  He's awesome. We have a great connection. Clear the calendar, this is what we're doing now. Even if, I'm not even saying someone who hates the rest of their life. You can like your job and still be so caught up in the chemical rush of, this was amazing, that this is all you want to do now. Right? Well, this isn't good for what you want to happen here. What do you want to happen? Well, you wanna get to know this person better, spend more time with them. Invest at an organic pace, based on the level of investment that's going on, right? Thing I've said for years, don't invest in someone based on how much you like them. Invest on, based on how much they invest in you.

• 16:55Matthew Hussey?

  People don't do that. People invest on instinct. I really like them. And my investment is proportionate to how much I like them. Not how much I'm seeing there's a mutual investment.

• 17:10Lewis Howes?

  How do you cultivate trust? If you're a hundred percent honest with that person? If you are transparent about every action you make in your life? If you're, you know, they have access to whatever they wanna see? And you're, you're constantly creating trust? But for whatever reason, they still might be jealous or insecure or not believing you. How does someone, get someone to trust them? Or is it not about them at that stage and it's about the other person and their insecurities?

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Well, it, it depends very much on the particulars of the situation.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  You know, so I don't know if there's a generic answer to that. I think that you can establish the ground rules explicitly. You know, and have a discussion about it. Are we gonna lie to each other or not? Are we gonna tell each other the truth to the degree that we can to make that an actual goal? And to talk through the consequences of doing that and not doing it? And then I would also say, whenever a hiccup occurs in the relationship? Maybe you don't call it out at each hiccup, you know? Because you have to have a certain amount of silent tolerance in any relationship? To let small infractions go. But if they repeat, my rule is three times.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  And it's the rule that we, I share with my wife. If something happens three times that is causing emotional upset, anger, jealousy? Disappointment, resentment, frustration, any of those things? Anything that you don't wanna experience? And that you especially don't wanna experience repeatedly? Then you can call it out. And, and if you, if you have three examples? Your case is much better made than if you just have one. And I would also say that when you call it out, you know, you could say, look, we were at a party the other night and you were, it looked to me, I felt as if you were paying too much intense intent, attention to Dave.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  There was flirting going on there. That's what it looked like to me. There was some flirting going on there. And you know, that made me uncomfortable. Well, you don't say, well, you were flirting, stop doing it. You say, well, this is how it looked. This is what it looked like to me and here was my response. And then you want to think, and maybe I'm a damn fool and blind and jealous and stupid. And I'm misinterpreting, or maybe it was a harmless flirtation of the sort that people will engage in. Because it adds a little bit of spice to a social interaction. You want to find out, like it, it's really convenient if it's the other person's fault. Except then you're laden with, living with that person. So it really doesn't help you anyways.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  But it's convenient because then they have to change. But you've got to think about this over the long run. You're going to be interacting with this person on a minute by minute basis for decades. If you're the idiot and that's causing trouble, then you should find out. So you want to say, well, look, this is what I saw. What's your explanation of what's going on? And then they'll offer you their viewpoint and hopefully they'll do the same thing. They'll think, well, this is my intent. And maybe they have to go think about it, but this is my intent and this is what I saw. And I think you're being oversensitive in that situation.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  And you peel back the explanations layer by layer until you both agree on what happened. And more importantly, on what you're going to do about it in the future. And that's really hard. And especially if there is something going on that's not straight. Because that will require quite a bit of digging. It'll probably result in anger and tears and a fight. And that's very unpleasant. It's, it's easier in the short term to avoid that. But hopefully the consequence of that is you don't have to have that fight again.

• 21:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  You have to come to a negotiated agreement about about that situation and you have to pay attention to your own

• 21:29Speaker 03

  uncomfortable, negative emotions in order to manage that and not and not pretend that everything's alright, or that you're nicer than you are, or that you're less jealous than you are, or or or less blind, or

• 21:43Speaker 03

  See, one of the things I learned from Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst, about marriage was that there is a reason marriage was a vow. Like, the vow is that you stick together. Okay, so now imagine that's a vow, okay? You do not get to leave, period. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, on the upside, it means that you don't have to be alone. It means that your family will have continuity over decades. It means that the narrative of your life won't be fragmented and broken by divorce or sequential divorce. It means that your children can grow up and maybe have their children within a continuing family.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  It means that your children will be able to maintain relationships with the grandparents on both sides and the cousins. Like, it's a big deal to maintain that. There's huge advantages in it. It means that you'll have someone there when you're not well, and so will your partner.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  And it'll mean that you have someone to share all of the positive things of life with. So there's huge advantages to it. Okay, so why does it have to be a vow? Well, I don't think you can tell the truth to someone who can run away. Because if you tell the truth to someone and they can run away, then they'll run away.

• 23:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Right? Because you're a mess, man, and not not just because of your own inadequacies, but because human beings are so complicated and and have such dark corners and and and have had, you know, unresolved problems in their life, sometimes that stem back generations and are twisted and bent in all sorts of ways and you you can't re- it's very, very difficult to reveal that.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Except to someone who can't run away. Now that, that, you know, I'm not saying that people should never separate. I, I am saying though, that it's better not to, if you can manage it. But then the other thing too, is if you can't run away, then you're motivated in a different way. It's like, I'm stuck with this woman and she's stuck with me. And unless we want to have this same goddamn fight over and over and over for the next, who knows how long, why don't we straighten it out? And then we can put it behind us. See, the, the vow gives you a kind of desperation. That is another motivation to actually solve the problems.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  And if you've got a way out, you, you can always stay hidden. You can guard yourself, you can protect yourself and even protect that part of yourself that thinks that it can leave if things get too bad. Now, the problem with that, in my estimation, is, is that you're gonna drag your stupidity into the next relationship.

• 24:39Lewis Howes?

  Right, always do, right?

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Well, generally speaking, right? And so, now, you can get very, you can, you can, in, under unfortunate circumstances, you can get tangled up with someone who's not playing a straight game with you and won't, and, and it's just impossible, but I'm not talking about the limit cases, you know? I'm talking about the average case, the average amount of unhappiness and trouble. It's still plenty. And then the, sorry, just one more thing I'd add to that. You also have to, in some sense, shake the illusion that the other person is somehow not you.

• 25:25Speaker 03

  You're so tied up with them that...

• 25:29Speaker 03

  There's no difference between you and them in some sense. Is that what's good for her is going to be good for you and vice versa. One of the things we try to do too, the two of us is, we try to say yes to each other. Now, there's rules that go along with that, which is, well, I'm going to say yes to you, but that sort of means that you shouldn't ask me unreasonable, you shouldn't make unreasonable demands. I'll say yes as much as I possibly can, and then you'll do that in return, and then we get yes out of the deal instead of no. That's also a huge plus.

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything that you feel like you still need work healing in order to let certain things go? Or are these things always going to be with us at certain times? Different stresses, or pains, or wounds, or PTSD from the past of our individual lives?

• 26:24Esther Perel?

  Look, the notion that when you heal, it's something utterly disappears, is one component of healing. But the other part is that you need a bigger trigger to reactivate an old wound, but there is a whole new range where the wound can live without being activated.

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  You've healed a certain amount of triggers, but there might be a bigger...

• 26:52Esther Perel?

  So, you know, you you come back from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from, you know, all the wars that people have fought here, and you, or you are a refugee from Syria or from Afghanistan, I mean, all sides. You may not at every siren jump anymore. But if suddenly...

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  If there's a bomb.

• 27:18Esther Perel?

  Yes, you will jump.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 27:19Esther Perel?

  So the range and the response, you know, to the danger shifts. That's the piece around healing. I think for me...

• 27:31Esther Perel?

  It was a real surprise, this fear that I got to experience. I didn't remember that. It had been a long time since.

• 27:38Lewis Howes?

  Because you're constantly doing the work.

• 27:40Esther Perel?

  Yes. I thought I have kind of created a life where I have a sense of ownership. I have a sense of control. I have a sense. But I always live with dread.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  You do.

• 27:50Esther Perel?

  I do.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  Still today.

• 27:51Esther Perel?

  That my whole life.

• 27:53Lewis Howes?

  Live with dread like.

• 27:54Esther Perel?

  That every minute something could happen.

• 27:56Lewis Howes?

  The sky could fall and.

• 27:57Esther Perel?

  The whole thing could disappear.

• 27:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 27:59Esther Perel?

  Because that is the core story of my family. And, um, but I don't have the dread all the time. But when it grips.

• 28:10Lewis Howes?

  It grips.

• 28:10Esther Perel?

  In the past, it would grip without anything happening. It just was like happening to me because I had a day where I just didn't know what I was going to do in my life. So it disappeared. I could talk about it, but I wouldn't necessarily feel it. It's physical. It's visceral. It's like you described the chest. For me, it's the gut. It says, hmm, right? But when the pandemic arrives, it's a trigger that is strong enough to bring back that sense of dread. And at that time, I wasn't aware of my dread. I was feeling my dread. That's very different. That's what I mean by the external versus the internal. Now, what do people struggle with? People have struggled with prolonged uncertainty.

• 28:53Esther Perel?

  Here are the five things of the pandemic that have affected relationships the most.

• 28:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:58Esther Perel?

  One is a prolonged sense of uncertainty. It's not just that you're not sure when this is going to end, but you're not sure about you're not being sure. Okay? This thing keeps coming and going all the time. One minute you say it's gone, the next minute you realize, oh, it's not gone at all. Okay, that. Then it's the notion of what we experienced was a collapse of all the boundaries. Here I am, I'm at home, I'm on my chair, at my kitchen table, and I am a therapist and a supervisor and a podcaster and a mother and a friend and a wife and, and, and. And I haven't left the chair.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 29:35Esther Perel?

  And I'm still just in sweatpants with the, you know, and I'm like, where is work? Where is life? Where is morning? Where is night? Where is just like all the roles have collapsed? And we are not made like this. We are. Physical people and we are spatially oriented. And we change location for our activities. We change clothes for our activities. And they help us enter the role. Now I'm going to work. Now I'm going to play sports. Now I'm going to the club. Now I'm going out. Now I'm going to visit my mother. And I look, I feel different. I look different. I wear different. I have rituals. I have things, a different bag, a different racket. None of this. You know what it means when your entire arsenal of rituals

• 30:19Esther Perel?

  that give meaning and frame your parts dissolves? You get exhausted. So that was the collapse of boundaries. Then there was the sense of ambiguous loss. You know, we lost spontaneity. We lost plans. We lost the weddings, the graduations, the parties, the promotions.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  Sports, games, everything, yeah.

• 30:43Esther Perel?

  It's not, there is the loss of death, but there is that other loss. The buildings that are standing, but they're empty. They're physically present, but emotionally vacated. We have the grandparents and the parents that are physically gone, but emotionally present. We call that ambiguous loss. When you are either physically present and psychologically gone, or psychologically present and physically gone.

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:07Esther Perel?

  That ambiguous loss became a part of what then Adam Grant began to describe in The Langishing. Langishing is you're not depressed. You're just like, eh, lifeless, flatlessness. Nothing is really giving you the sense of meaning and purpose and joy that you generally want. That has happened in your relationship. And what happens when you are in a period of liminality like this, where the big dilemmas are not getting answered, is that all the unknowns are filtering onto your relationships. And the relationship becomes the holder of all that stress. And that is part of the divorce rate at the moment. And the weight that has felt on the relationships.

• 31:52Esther Perel?

  It's not just people didn't get along. It's that people needed in the relationships to deal from the political polarization to the racial reckoning, to the economic insecurity, to the ambiguous loss, to the prolonged uncertainty. All of that fell on relationships.

• 32:11Esther Perel?

  This is the story of the last two years. That people know, they feel it, but they don't necessarily articulate it.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  Hard to make a relationship last. If you don't have the tools and you're not willing to work through it.

• 32:24Esther Perel?

  How do you stay grounded when the ground itself is moving?

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  It's quicksand.

• 32:28Esther Perel?

  It's the great adaptation of this moment. And so, relationships began to see the cracks inside their relationship. And people also began to see the light that shines through the cracks. Both ends.

• 32:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome? Was it conflict resolution? Was it boundaries? Was it not abandoning yourself? Was it communication skills? What was the?

• 32:53Faith Jenkins?

  Fear.

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  Fear of what?

• 32:55Faith Jenkins?

  Fear of failure.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  Like a relationship not working?

• 32:58Faith Jenkins?

  Relationship not working. When you have been through, as you date and you go through relationships, and you've been through betrayal and heartbreak and hurt and pain, you can become pretty cynical about love. And if you're not careful, that cynicism can really be a hindrance for you. Because you cannot be a cynic about love and expect to attract it at the same time.

• 33:29Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, snap. That's true.

• 33:31Faith Jenkins?

  Yeah.

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  So how did you keep your heart open after going through breakups? And maybe after, you know, challenging things happening in relationships where that hurt you? How did you stay open to love?

• 33:43Faith Jenkins?

  I had to reframe my thoughts and ideas and my perspective about the past.

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  What did you think about them then?

• 33:54Faith Jenkins?

  I had to learn to allow the past to stay in the past. I didn't want someone to come into my life and I make them pay for something they had nothing to do with.

• 34:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's tough.

• 34:06Faith Jenkins?

  In my past.

• 34:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's tough.

• 34:07Faith Jenkins?

  And when I got married, who did I want my husband to be? This bitter, broken down woman who had been through the wringer in all these years and all these relationships. Or did I want him to meet someone who, because we're all, we're always in the process of healing. We're always in the process of growth and our emotional health. But did I want him to meet someone who was committed to that growth?

• 34:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 34:34Faith Jenkins?

  And that process. And going forward, being committed to the same commitment, which is, which is what really success in marriage boils down to. Being committed to the same commitment. Because, you know, when I was younger, I thought it was about this involuntary feeling of love. And then as I got older, I realized it was a conscious decision to love.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. It's not just, oh, I have this attraction to this person, I feel love towards them. It's a conscious decision.

• 35:04Faith Jenkins?

  Because you're not always going to feel love. You're going to go through ups and downs and peaks and valleys. And if it were about a feeling, you'd be all over the place emotionally.

• 35:14Lewis Howes?

  Up and down, yeah.

• 35:15Faith Jenkins?

  It's about a decision.

• 35:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:16Faith Jenkins?

  And so when I talk about, earlier, when I talked about separating your feelings from the facts, that's what I mean. Like, you're, you're going to have a range of emotions, but the fact is, this is a person that I've committed my life to.

• 35:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Faith Jenkins?

  This is a person that I've committed to grow with. This is, so I made all of these commitments to this person. And then you go forward with that in mind.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  Did you have fears around getting married?

• 35:42Faith Jenkins?

  I had a fear of the unknown.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Faith Jenkins?

  What is marriage really like? You know, I see other people who are married, some of them happy, some of them not. Obviously, I see a lot of people getting divorced. So what is it about marriage? What makes it work? Do I know what makes it work? Do I have what it takes to make it work? So it was, it was the fear of the unknown, because I hadn't done it before. Marriage by nature. Changes you. It's the closest relationship you'll ever have. It's very different from the parent-child relationship, every other relationship.

• 36:17Lewis Howes?

  Friends, everything, yeah.

• 36:18Faith Jenkins?

  I wonder how it would change me.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  From being in a relationship and dating to then being married, what have been the biggest differences and changes?

• 36:27Faith Jenkins?

  Allowing someone to see me at my most vulnerable state.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, did you allow that during the dating process?

• 36:34Faith Jenkins?

  I allowed it to a certain extent, but I didn't, I didn't live with my husband before we got married. That was a choice that we made.

• 36:41Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:41Faith Jenkins?

  We did not want to live together. And so when we got married and we moved in together, I had not lived with anyone since I was in college for 20 years.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:51Faith Jenkins?

  So, again, it's that adjustment in life. Just sharing my space with another human being every day.

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  You got married.

• 37:01Faith Jenkins?

  And how to handle that.

• 37:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you got married a week before the pandemic in 2020.

• 37:04Faith Jenkins?

  Yes.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  March 8th, 2020, you said. So what was that, I mean, that takes a lot of guts to not live with someone beforehand in the modern world to not fully see the person who they are. So I commend you on that. So did you, what did you learn? Going through a pandemic for the last two years, getting married a week before, and then moving in together and sharing a life during, you know, arguably one of the scariest uncertain times in the last 20, 30 years?

• 37:34Faith Jenkins?

  Everything changed in the blink of an eye. We got married on March 8th in Los Angeles. Big wedding, all of our family, all of our friends, hugging, high-fiving, kissing. Had no idea what was about to happen a week later. And I do look back on that day because I thought, you know, when we were talking about our wedding, do we want to do something small? Do we want to, and, and, you know, we ended up just inviting our people and everyone came out. And now I look back on that day and I cherish it so much.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, because people have done that for a couple of years.

• 38:07Faith Jenkins?

  Right, and I haven't seen a lot of those people since. So it, it just made those memories even more special to us. But also, yes, a week later, the world shut down. So we decided to take a mini moon. We weren't, we were going to do a big honeymoon over the summer. So we just went to Newport Beach. And we were there for a few days and we were in a bubble. We didn't know a lot about everything that was happening in the world until we, we came out of this bubble. So we came back to LA. And I mean, there was no toilet tissue on the shelves, the grocery store. I mean, it was just empty. Everything was empty. I'd never seen anything like it before. And I was like, oh, so you mean to tell me I waited all this time to get married? And the world is about to end?

• 38:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:53Faith Jenkins?

  It was, it was crazy.

• 38:55Lewis Howes?

  So what, what did you guys create? Did you guys come together and say, let's build a strong foundation during this time?

• 39:02Faith Jenkins?

  Yes.

• 39:03Lewis Howes?

  Did you, do you feel like it's made the relationship stronger?

• 39:06Faith Jenkins?

  Absolutely.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Has it been a stressful move, living with someone for the first time in 20 years? How have you navigated it all?

• 39:13Faith Jenkins?

  Uh, we adapted really well. And during that time, we had every day and all that time to spend time together. And the pandemic, you know, it challenged all of us in different ways, but it also presented us with an opportunity. And for us, it was noise cancellation headphones through the first few months of our marriage. Because we got to really sit and be together and be still and be quiet. You know, my husband is an R and B singer. He travels all over the world. And he had, he was leaving a week after we got married to start traveling again.

• 39:48Lewis Howes?

  Not anymore.

• 39:48Faith Jenkins?

  That, that didn't happen. And so we got to spend a lot of quality time together. And I will tell you what I learned about him.

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:55Faith Jenkins?

  What I talked about earlier, about when you see the, the true measure of a person and how they handle adversity and how they handle difficult circumstances. And, uh, cause all of his, you know, live music was impacted greatly.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  That's how you make most of your money, yeah.

• 40:11Faith Jenkins?

  And I never heard him complain, not even once. And I saw him be a source of encouragement to a lot of other of his artists and musician friends. And I mean, I was even shocked. I was like, okay, we're, we're, we're all about positivity and, and, you know, wake up happy every day. But really, you really wake up as happy every day?

• 40:32Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:33Faith Jenkins?

  And it was inspiring to see. And I knew in those first few months that because you always, you know, you every love is about taking a risk.

• 40:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Faith Jenkins?

  You know, we talk about that fear because we're it's a risk. There's a fear of being hurt again. There's a fear of those triggers being exposed again. And in that moment, I I knew and I believed I had made a right decision, but in those months after the the pandemic, I saw it for myself very early on in my marriage, who my husband was in a in stressful times, in difficult circumstances, and how he was a source of inspiration and strength for a lot of people, including me.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. So were you was each day kind of a confirmation that this was a great decision?

• 41:22Faith Jenkins?

  Yes.

• 41:22Lewis Howes?

  I leaned into this and.

• 41:24Faith Jenkins?

  Yes.

• 41:24Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 41:25Faith Jenkins?

  Yes. It's been it's been two years of just this amazing time in my life because I used to get asked a lot why I was still single for so long. And I started to feel pressure from people. I never put the pressure on myself, and I know a lot of people perhaps do, but if you're not careful when you're single and people are asking you, well, I don't understand why aren't you married or what's going on? You can start to internalize it and feel that there's something wrong with you or that there there's something off within you. And it can almost be something that you become embarrassed by because people are asking you as if you've missed some mark

• 42:07Faith Jenkins?

  in your life, some milestone that you um should have achieved by now. Not asking me if it was a desire of mine, by the way, if I wanted to, but just asking me, why wasn't I? And um.

• 42:20Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think people care so much about other people being in a relationship or being single?

• 42:24Faith Jenkins?

  Well, the question I think speaks more to the who they are than it ever did to who I was. Because I was okay. You know, I there were lessons that I had to learn to get to the place where I could go into a successful marriage. I needed to learn those lessons. There are almost eight billion people on this planet. We can't all be doing the same things at the same time and we're not supposed to be. Hmm. We're all supposed to be living our individual life paths and our individual life journeys. There are some people who don't think that. They think you need to be married by a certain age. You need to have children by a certain age, or you're not living your, the, the right path. Yeah. It's just not true. Right. This is not a race. Why is it not a race? Because we're not all running in the same direction.

• 43:09Faith Jenkins?

  So I learned very early on, and I think living in New York actually helped with that because I was around so many other young professionals who were, you know, at the top of their games and their careers and we were, you know, Saturday night, we're here, Wednesday night, we're at a show and the live music and everything and just embracing our, our full lives and accepting that being single was not a rest stop for me. Until I met my husband and really got to live. Well, if I had done that, I wouldn't have lived until I was forty-two years old. So what would I have done with all those years in my twenties and thirties? So it wasn't a rest stop and I embraced that, that time of, and just did so many, I traveled across, all around the world by myself, solo.

• 43:55Faith Jenkins?

  Went to all the restaurants that I wanted to go to, Washington Sex and the City. Sometimes I would go by myself. Yeah. You know, I had this vibrant group of friends. I was not waiting to live my life and I, I think that people, they project their own view of what they think life should be onto you.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.