Dr. Orna Gurlanik: Struggling to Communicate With Your Partner? THIS One Habit Could Slowly Be Destroying Your Relationship! (Here’s How to Catch It Before It’s Too Late!)

Do you ever feel like you're having the same fight over and over again? Why is it so hard to be in a relationship with someone who is different from you? Today, Jay sits down with Dr. Orna Guralnik — the world-renowned clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and lead therapist on the hit series Couples Therapy. Known for helping couples navigate the complexities of intimacy, conflict, and emotional patterns, Orna shares the real reason relationships break down — and what it actually takes to build something that lasts. Jay and Orna explore why couples often blame communication as the root of all their problems, when what’s really breaking them down runs much deeper. They explore how differences in values, backgrounds, and even childhood wounds create invisible barriers in love—and how we often try to solve them by changing the other person instead of turning inward. Orna shares how blame, defensiveness, and scorekeeping keep us stuck in toxic patterns, and what it looks like to show up with more honesty, humility, and curiosity. Together Jay and Orna unpack the rise of therapy language online—terms like “gaslighting” and “narcissist”—and how misusing them can shut down the kind of open dialogue relationships truly need. They also explore how issues around money, time, and intimacy often point to deeper struggles with power, identity, and emotional safety. In this interview, you’ll learn: How to Stop Trying to “Fix” Your Partner How to Recognize the Real Issue Beneath the Argument How to Make Conflict a Source of Connection How to Move from Blame to Responsibility How to Stay Grounded When Your Values Clash How to Build a Relationship That Grows with You Real love doesn’t ask us to become someone else — it asks us to grow into our most honest, grounded self. This episode is a reminder that healthy relationships aren’t about avoiding differences, but about learning how to navigate them with compassion. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:06 Why Couples Really Fight: The Common Core Conflicts 04:02 Facing “Otherness”: What Happens When Your Partner Is Different 06:07 Embracing Differences Without Losing Yourself 10:21 Building a Partnership of Equals During Conflict 16:48 Holding On to Your Value in a Relationship 19:39 Conflicting Loyalties: When Family and Love Collide 25:18 The Art of Working Through Relationship Struggles 30:01 Digging Deeper: Finding the Root of Your Disagreements 33:26 Escaping the Blame Trap in Your Relationship 37:24 Self-Centeredness vs. Shared Growth 43:07 Creating Emotional Safety for Your Partner 49:57 Letting Love In: Are You Truly Ready for Partnership? 55:33 How Men and Women Tend to Navigate Relationships Differently 57:02 Why It’s So Hard for Men to Open Up Emotionally 01:00:59 Listen Closely—People Reveal More Than You Think 01:03:20 When Parental Baggage Shapes Your Relationship 01:06:57 Signs of a Strong and Healthy Relationship 01:13:35 What Really Makes Someone a Bad Partner? 01:18:35 Are You in Love with a Narcissist? 01:22:12 The Money Struggles Behind Relationship Conflict 01:28:46 Intimacy and Desire: What Keeps Love Alive 01:33:25 Orna on Final Five Episode Resources: Orna Guralnik | Website Orna Guralnik | Linkedin Orna Guralnik | Instagram Orna Guralnik | Tiktok See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:43Jay Shetty?

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• 1:27Jay Shetty?

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• 2:06Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I often joke about it that, that most couples come in saying that they have problems in communication.

• 2:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Now, I understand that it looks like a problem in communication because the way couples interact with each other is by, mostly by talking, although there's a lot of non-verbal talking through one's feet. But where whatever's going on between them manifests is going to be in their communication. So couples typically think, if only we could communicate better, our problems would be solved. So that's the number one thing that people come in with. Then there are particular kind of,

• 2:46Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  we could say, content areas that couples come complaining about, depending on where they are in their life cycle. A very common one is division of labor. It's not fair. Who's doing what more? Questions around intimacy, whether it's sex, or spending time together, or connecting. Then there are ways in which their early childhood manifests in their couple's life. But I'd say those are like the key areas.

• 3:19Jay Shetty?

  So it sounded like when you were saying, people come in and they think communication's the issue.

• 3:25Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Jay Shetty?

  The look on your face was, that's not really the issue.

• 3:28Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 3:28Jay Shetty?

  So what is the issue?

• 3:30Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right. Well, there are many issues, but the thing is, when you, when you guide people into how to communicate better, and how to really speak and listen to each other and get to the heart of the issue, usually there are real issues that are underlying the issues of communication. And often, people make communication difficult because it's hard for them to touch the real issues. So they defensively create problems in communication. So when you're asking, what are the real issues? At least from my perspective, I think if I had to like summarize it in the, in the most succinct way, I would say, the real issue that couples face is that their...

• 4:17Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Building a relationship or living with another person who's different from them. And that is really hard. It's very exciting, it's a source of growth, it's a source of desire, it's a source of lots of good things. But it's also incredibly difficult and annoying. Whether it's like the small habits of another person or the deepest core of who they are and their values and their politics. There are many ways in which the otherness of your partner infringes on you and puts you in all sorts of like difficult positions.

• 4:54Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking back to it. I remember when my wife and I, when we were just dating. And when we lived together for a brief amount of time, that was when I was like, oh, I think we could be good together. Because it was, it felt easy to go to work, be in the same space. We kind of had a good distribution of household responsibilities, like we, we felt like we had a flow. It's really interesting to me because when I look earlier in my dating life. And when I speak to so many people myself, sometimes you can be such good. Partners when your boyfriend and girlfriend or whatever your makeup may be. But then when you move in together, you're not as good roommates.

• 5:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Jay Shetty?

  And it feels like that transition is where so much of this is discovered.

• 5:42Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes, that is probably the first round in which things are discovered, like the living together. And you can think of it as compatibility. Some people just have similar habits or, you know, they, they like the dishwasher loaded a particular way similarly or. And, and it makes it easy. But if you, if you go kind of deeper under, I think part of it is. How do you respond to otherness? How do you respond to someone who's different from you in the smallest way and in the biggest way? And for some of us, differentness poses a lot of issues, a lot of problems. It feels.

• 6:25Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Intrusive, it makes you question your own beliefs, it's. You, you, you immediately get into questioning who's right, who's wrong, who's top, who's bottom. Otherness can trigger a lot of stuff, whatever the otherness is, and for some people, it's more easygoing. It's easier to just accept the fact that people have. Different habits. Part of it is compatibility and part of it is like, can you really, are you ready to tolerate another person and to adjust to another person and change in response to letting someone else into your life?

• 7:00Jay Shetty?

  I'm really appreciating the language with which you're explaining this because I genuinely don't believe I've heard it that simply before and that well. And I say that because I think we often make it about, do we have compatibility? Do we have chemistry? Do we have connection? And really, you're so right that it's feeling othered or otherness that really causes all of our conflict. And, and I have, I have a, oh, I want to apologize. We never introduced Nico. I think Nico is making me aware now. Nico is saying like, wait, you left me out.

• 7:33Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  What about me?

• 7:34Jay Shetty?

  This beautiful being that we have roaming around us at all times is Nico, who we're very grateful is here and is even more beautiful in person. When Ravi and I first started living together, we found that we had very, a very small example. We had very different routines in how we liked to host and entertain. So if we had friends over, we both want to have dinner with them. But then after having dinner, I want to hang out on the couch. I want to talk to them. I want to relax. I want to spend time with them. Ravi wants to get into the kitchen and clean while everyone's there.

• 8:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 8:08Jay Shetty?

  And then go to hanging.

• 8:09Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Jay Shetty?

  And I want to hang out with everyone. And then I want to go and clean when everyone's left.

• 8:15Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Totally get it.

• 8:16Jay Shetty?

  And mine comes from how I was raised. So that's what we did in my house. And hers comes from how she was raised.

• 8:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 8:23Jay Shetty?

  Now, I don't think there's a better or worse. I think it's a preference. But what I found was that when I would hang out straight after eating and I wouldn't clean up, there were times when Ravi would see that as me not valuing her.

• 8:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right, shirking responsibility.

• 8:38Jay Shetty?

  Exactly, shirking responsibility or you expect me to do everything.

• 8:41Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Jay Shetty?

  And that's not how I felt.

• 8:42Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 8:43Jay Shetty?

  But that's how it came across.

• 8:44Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 8:45Jay Shetty?

  That's why what you're saying resonates with me so strongly because the otherness of activity also leads to the otherness of emotion. And all of a sudden now, you're filling in. The gaps of that space.

• 8:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Jay Shetty?

  Of being othered. So to her, it became, I'm disrespected, I'm not valued. Uh, you're shirking responsibility, you're lazy, whatever it may have been.

• 9:06Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Exactly.

• 9:07Jay Shetty?

  Me, it became, well, I'm just trying to hang out. What's wrong with you? Why can't you just have fun? You know, why do you have to be so fixated on cleaning up? Like, why you so, whatever it may be, right?

• 9:17Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It's perfect.

• 9:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Can I?

• 9:19Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 9:19Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Borrow this from my book?

• 9:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, please, that's.

• 9:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Cause this is like a perfect example. And just the way you said it also, that that's exactly it. That there's a space of difference and you don't understand why you're different and you immediately start building theories that are basically meant to answer the question. I, how am I right and what's wrong with you? Right? Because difference, we can't just, it's very hard for us to just let difference sit there and just say, we're just different. And how are we gonna move with this difference? What's the best way to move with it? We immediately start like involving, I don't know what it is. It's like our ego or, or

• 10:03Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  something about who we are that's at question with difference. And that's where a lot of the trouble starts coming in. Like you build theories, like she's building a theory that you're like shirking responsibility or oh, here's another guy just wanting the woman in the kitchen.

• 10:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 10:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And you're like, oh, here is a wife that doesn't want to have fun. She's just gonna be like nagging me to do this, that and the other. I mean, we know the theories. It's very easy to kind of inject theories in there. But part of what happens in, in couples work and you know, you don't know, you don't have to do it through therapy. But part of what happens is you start tracking the automatic way that you assign all these scripts to your partner to avoid just dealing with the discomfort of otherness. I think of it sometimes like a thorn, like a thorn that gets stuck in you that disrupts your way of thinking about things. Like suddenly there's another way of doing things and you're like, wait a minute.

• 11:06Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Do I have to think about how I'm doing things at all? Do I have to question what I'm doing and how am I gonna respond to that provocation?

• 11:13Jay Shetty?

  Hmm. And what's the difference between, like, I feel like for a lot of people? They maybe in the beginning, they'll just fold and do what their partner wants because it's easier.

• 11:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 11:24Jay Shetty?

  And then maybe many years later, they'll be like, I changed for you. I did that for you. I did all these things for you, but you didn't value me and, you know, you haven't changed or whatever it may be.

• 11:33Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Totally.

• 11:34Jay Shetty?

  There's a lot of different versions of that. That's one version. What's the right balance between looking for the right solution and looking for, I I'm not a fan of the word compromise.

• 11:46Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:46Jay Shetty?

  What are your thoughts on the word compromise?

• 11:49Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Uh, could you say a little bit more just about like, oh, that's interesting.

• 11:52Jay Shetty?

  I I don't love. So for example, for me, I don't believe, I think compromise is us both saying, well, okay, well, I'll do a little bit of this for you if you do a little bit of this for me. Whereas to me, it's like, well, can we work together to figure out what makes the most sense?

• 12:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:08Jay Shetty?

  And what is actually the most practical, best, effective solution where everyone's happier? And I don't think that means some, like, for example, with this situation, we have now believed that it is nicer to host as long as Radi has the peace of mind that everything will be cleaned that evening.

• 12:25Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 12:26Jay Shetty?

  We've come to a conclusion, which I don't think is a compromise for either of us.

• 12:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 12:29Jay Shetty?

  It's a feeling that we both found a solution together.

• 12:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 12:33Jay Shetty?

  And compromise to me makes me feel like I gave up something or I lost out on something or she did.

• 12:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 12:38Jay Shetty?

  And I don't want her to give up something for me that's important. If she said to me, Jay, it is so important to me that we clean up right away. I would value that and I would do it.

• 12:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Jay Shetty?

  I don't want to do it because I feel forced to or I have to.

• 12:50Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 12:50Jay Shetty?

  That's my issue with it.

• 12:51Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I'm thinking about how I work it out with couples when, first of all, couples need to abandon the idea that one of them is completely right and one of them is wrong. Right? You you you want to approach the difference with the idea that you're equal partners, that you each have a valid point of view, even if it's different. And that's actually not an easy thing to get to.

• 13:15Jay Shetty?

  It's so hard.

• 13:16Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  So hard, right?

• 13:17Jay Shetty?

  I see that being the biggest challenge for couples.

• 13:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And it would be interesting to think about, like, why is it so hard for us? But it's very hard. But once you approach a difference in terms of it just simply being two equal partners struggling with difference, then you want to create a space, and I agree with you, that to simply compromise is sometimes just a quick fix and it kind of, it's like a Band-Aid that underneath it can breed resentments. And and you can eventually somehow go back to the idea that it's not fair. I compromise more than you or but to do what you're suggesting doing, which is to really put both minds to it and arrive at a conclusion together is actually really hard. You have to overcome both a lot of your own convictions, selfish needs,

• 14:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  and really work for the good of the relationship of the total, the total good. That's why I often say that couples form between them like a political system. It's like the first political system of how do you resolve difference? Are you going to be like autocratic or democratic in terms of how you resolve a difference?

• 14:23Jay Shetty?

  Oh, interesting. I like that.

• 14:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Sometimes I go back to reminding people of how, when you have two kids playing and wanting to play with the same toy, like, how do you coach kids on what to do in that case? Do you take turns? Do you give both kids the same toy? Do you just remove the kids from the situation and say, oh, they can't play well together? Do you leave one kid crying, having to compromise in a way that was just really depriving for them? And they were not ready for all this to say that the solution that you're suggesting, which is to really put your minds together and figure out a solution that is good for everyone, is hard.

• 15:03Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I do think it's the best one, but I think it requires a certain kind of honesty and willing to give up a certain kind of investment, selfish investment in the thing that you believe in. You have to like relax your convictions.

• 15:22Jay Shetty?

  It it makes so much sense to me because I feel like most issues are this.

• 15:28Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 15:29Jay Shetty?

  And most people are not solving this.

• 15:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 15:32Jay Shetty?

  And we're lost trying to solve some other puzzle.

• 15:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Jay Shetty?

  And I couldn't agree with you more that whether I'm talking to a family member, a friend, a coaching client, or I'm watching something on TV or hearing from someone about something. This is the problem.

• 15:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yep.

• 15:48Jay Shetty?

  And this is the root of it, that we don't want to accept that someone else may be right and we may be wrong.

• 15:54Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Jay Shetty?

  That someone else may have a better idea than ours.

• 15:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Jay Shetty?

  And ours may be worse. And that the way their parents did things might actually supersede the way our parents did things.

• 16:03Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Jay Shetty?

  And we don't like that.

• 16:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 16:05Jay Shetty?

  Because it makes us feel almost disloyal to our own upbringing.

• 16:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Jay Shetty?

  There's like a feeling of I'm betraying what my parents did. I'm betraying tradition.

• 16:19Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yep.

• 16:19Jay Shetty?

  There's an ego conflict there of, but this is my identity, this is who I am.

• 16:25Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 16:25Jay Shetty?

  And by telling me there's another way, a better way.

• 16:28Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Jay Shetty?

  You're almost making me feel like my identity is becoming more and more insignificant day by day.

• 16:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And I'm losing something that grounds me. What's gonna happen to me if I don't have this identity?

• 16:39Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 16:39Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And the loyalty can be to, to parents, it can be to, to a particular group that you're associated with. It could be to your religion. And it can be to a, an ideology or a belief system that, that you feel like your, yourself kind of depends on. No one wants to be in a relationship where their partner is just waiting for them to change, for the relationship to really start. We're self-centered. We've, we've got like, you know, the, the, our perceptive field and we don't really see the other. And working through that and, and getting to a more humble place where you understand that you've been more selfish and then in certain ways

• 17:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  you are exploiting your partner. It's an important piece of the work. There's a certain level of acceptance that has to happen. Of course, we wanna change and get better and grow with each other, but you can't really be in a conditional relationship. That's not gonna work.

• 17:40Jay Shetty?

  How do you open up to the idea?

• 17:45Jay Shetty?

  That someone else's value may be helpful without devaluing yourself. Almost, how do you open up to the idea that someone else and you can build something together without feeling like you're losing and merging yourself? Because I think what's interesting here is the person often with the better idea is also not doing it to find a common solution. They also just want you to go their way. And so we're also not being led perfectly, if that makes sense.

• 18:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right. You know, ideally, you wanna create conditions where it stops being about who's right, who's wrong. But again, it's for the, the, the good of everyone. Like the, you, ideally, you want kind of the questions of the ego to kind of drop to the background and to really get into the state of mind where both participants feel acknowledged, safe, and they don't have to worry about their, their identity or their ego or their, or their personal investment. And they have a feeling that they're gonna gain something for the good of the couple or the family or the unit, that there's something that exceeds them that will benefit from this.

• 18:59Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And, and to get there, there are many ways to get there, but um, I know what I try to do in my practice is to create, first of all, a sense of, you know, what people call now in, in, in popular language, like a safe space. And what does that mean? It means a space in which what matters to you in a deep way is heard, is respected. You may not necessarily get exactly your way, but you feel on a basic human level that your dignity, your, your, the things you care about that really matter to you are seen and respected and that whoever's negotiating with you will take that into

• 19:43Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  account, not just kind of, you know, bulldoze over you. And when people feel cared for in this way by the therapist or eventually by their partner, they're willing to do a lot. I think people were all mostly, we have like an incredibly Generous, creative spirit within us that if we stop feeling threatened, we we want to operate from there for the better of everyone. And I think when you get to a solution where one person feels, oh, I got my way and the other one didn't, it never ultimately feels good. It might feel good in the moment, like you got a momentary win, but you're left with this kind of churning, uncomfortable feeling

• 20:27Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  that you took something that you shouldn't have taken from someone.

• 20:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. I think I think the challenge that people experience is like, let's say it's the holidays and I'm saying to you, I'm like, I know we're going to your families for Christmas. I just want you to know that I really feel uncomfortable around your parents because I feel like they're always, you know, picking at my career or they're always making me feel a bit insecure about something like this. Or maybe they're somewhat downplaying some of my achievements or whatever. I just want you to know that sometimes I feel triggered. Like, let's say I say that to my partner.

• 21:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 21:06Jay Shetty?

  Very untrue for my life, but.

• 21:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But actually, it's a very common thing.

• 21:10Jay Shetty?

  Very common thing for others. And your partner doesn't have, what I find today is, people don't have the capability to validate you.

• 21:19Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 21:19Jay Shetty?

  Without feeling like they're invalidating themselves.

• 21:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Jay Shetty?

  So the person responding to that goes, how can you say that about my parents? They love you. I mean, they love you. Like, what are you talking about? Like, oh, my God, they they've got you an amazing gift. Like, it's a surprise. Like, you don't even know. Like, you know, oh, my God, they were just asking about you yesterday. And you're like, no, I get that. I'm not saying they're not loving, but I just feel like I get really triggered because of this, this and this. And they're like, you're just crazy. Like, just, you know, don't worry about it. I just, it's not a big deal.

• 21:46Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 21:46Jay Shetty?

  And it's not that that person is, your partner's not being mean, but they don't realize because they're so scared. Or they'll say something to you like, I can't believe you can say that about my parents. My parents are loving, wonderful people.

• 21:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Jay Shetty?

  And now you feel really hurt and pushed away.

• 22:00Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 22:01Jay Shetty?

  Because you're like, well, wait a minute. So I find that often when people share how they actually feel, the person on the receiving side doesn't know how to receive that.

• 22:10Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Totally.

• 22:10Jay Shetty?

  Because they're scared that if they accept that, then then they have to accept that their parents are the worst people on the planet, or whatever else comes with that criticism. How do we, how do we kind of wrap our head around that?

• 22:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, you're, you're capturing something very significant. I think first of all, just to understand why is that kind of moment so difficult before even trying to think of the solution? I think one of the thing it brings up for people, let's say to, to go with the example you're raising, it brings up both conflicting loyalties, what you were saying earlier, loyalty to your family of origin, loyalty to your culture, loyalty to yourself, your sense of goodness, versus your loyalty to taking care of your partner and caring about their feelings. That's a real inner conflict that that kind of predicament puts the receiving partner in. They're conflicted between these loyalties.

• 23:03Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Just to underline something here, to be in a state of inner conflict is difficult. It's difficult for all of us. We like simple solutions. We like right or wrong. We like good or bad. We don't like, I love my parents, they're awesome, they've taken such good care of me, but they're also hurting my partner. It's, it's very uncomfortable for all of us to be in inner conflict. So to understand that putting your, your partner in that position is already asking them to sit in a difficult position for themselves. So what to do in that case? I think what I do when I work with couples, when they're in that kind of predicament,

• 23:44Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  is I help both of them understand the difficulties they're going through in having the conversation. Not the solution, but why is the conversation difficult? Let's say the receiving partner, whose parents are criticized, I might slow them down and first of all, ask them to talk about what kind of position that puts them in, like to try to describe the inner conflict it puts them in, like their love for their parents. And I ask the partner to understand that they're asking their partner to position themselves away from their parents, and that's a hard thing to do.

• 24:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And I'm asking the, the receiving partner to understand that.

• 24:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  The person who's, let's say, criticizing their parents or talking about being triggered is also a complex person who's talking about having multiple kinds of feelings. They can both appreciate the parents, appreciate their connection to the parents, and have another kind of feeling. We're talking about kind of expanding the spectrum of what people can hear and feel, hear from each other, feel in themselves, and calm down about it. It's okay to have conflicting multiple feelings. And nothing has to be like an immediate resolution. Okay, that means I'm never coming to Thanksgiving with your parents, or I'm gonna be a jerk and not talk to your father. It's okay to have all these feelings and sit and eat the turkey.

• 25:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, a lot of, I feel like a lot of men feel caught in between their mom and their wife if they're in a heterosexual relationship.

• 25:28Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 25:28Jay Shetty?

  There's this conflict of, oh, my gosh, I've got to choose between my mom and my wife.

• 25:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Jay Shetty?

  Or my girlfriend, or whatever.

• 25:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Jay Shetty?

  Whatever it may be.

• 25:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Which is true.

• 25:38Jay Shetty?

  Which is true.

• 25:39Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It's true. You have to make a transition. When you get involved with a significant other, you're making a transition. I mean, I love the fact that you brought up the idea of loyalties, which is so powerful for all of us. Loyalties to family, loyalties to ideas. There is an element of making a transition from belonging to one group to belonging to a new family or new group. And that is hard. It's hard for the person, and it's hard for the mother. And it's hard for everyone.

• 26:12Jay Shetty?

  Let's talk about that, because I think culturally, and different cultures have different expectations too.

• 26:16Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Jay Shetty?

  For example, in the Indian culture.

• 26:18Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Oof.

• 26:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's generally seen that the woman becomes a part of the man's family. Now, that's a very traditional idea. I was very fortunate to grow up in a home that was far more broad-minded than that. And we don't, I don't subscribe to it at all.

• 26:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  What generation are you?

• 26:33Jay Shetty?

  I'm like, first generation in England.

• 26:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  First generation, yeah.

• 26:37Jay Shetty?

  In England, yeah. First generation in England. I definitely don't subscribe to that idea. To me, it's Dehumanizing of the individual who kind of becomes like, oh, you were.

• 26:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You're like an object.

• 26:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you're like an object that's now been placed over. Now, do I believe that we're a part of each other's families? Of course. But I think for me, it was very clear that we were now building something together.

• 26:58Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 26:59Jay Shetty?

  And that became the priority. And the buildings that we both came from were homes that we could always visit and be a part of. But we had to be very careful in curating the home. And I I would explain this, the way I like to think about it, because I know a lot of people who, when I say this to them, they get robbed the wrong way because they're like, what about culture? What about tradition? What about my family values? Going back to loyalty?

• 27:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 27:23Jay Shetty?

  And I like people to think about it like designing a home. And we were talking about that earlier.

• 27:27Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 27:27Jay Shetty?

  So you grew up in a certain home and your partner grew up in a certain home. And I'm guessing when you move into a home or you've rented an apartment or whatever it is that you both decide to do together, you design it to your tastes together. It would be very rare for you to say, I want this to look exactly like my mom's home. And it'd be very rare for that person to say, I want this to look exactly like my dad's own. Chances are you're both gonna come together. And you maybe one of the partners takes the lead because the other person doesn't have much interest or talent or skill. And you end up creating this space, but the point was you knew you were creating something together.

• 28:01Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 28:01Jay Shetty?

  And so I like to think about it like that, where it's like, okay, well, we're designing something together. And that doesn't mean we don't take influence and inspiration from the homes we came from. But we're not trying to mirror those homes perfectly, no matter how amazing they were. How do we open up our minds to that? Because I think so many people just go, well, no, this is how it's done. And this is how it's meant to be.

• 28:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  People come into relationships probably with your idea that they're gonna create something together. And that's their kind of conscious mind. But then as the relationship starts to kind of take shape.

• 28:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  All sorts of unconscious loyalties.

• 28:38Jay Shetty?

  So true.

• 28:38Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Creep in and then a person might believe that they're creating this new home. But they suddenly feel like, to use it metaphorically, but the foyer has to look a certain way and they don't even know why. But it's coming from their family of origin, a certain kind of. It makes me think also of queer couples that that that were raised by straight parents. They have to really rebrand everything and recreate. They can't rely on the old model. But they don't have another model to rely on yet. So it creates like all these like confusions, like, wait, are we trying to build kind of a straight like relationship or are we creating something totally new?

• 29:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And it's hard to create new. I mean, it's it's there's something that's easy when you rely on like an old model that was handed down to you and you don't have to like reinvent things and you don't have to think and wonder what's right, what's wrong. You're just kind of repeating something that was done.

• 29:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It it comes up again a- around questions of raising children. That's like, then it starts all over again, like, what's the right way to raise children and, you know, I don't know. Sleep training or.

• 29:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:53Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  This is just.

• 29:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and then both your parents have ideas on how you should raise the kids too. And now you're fighting about what your parents think.

• 30:01Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Jay Shetty?

  Is the right way to raise kids.

• 30:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Jay Shetty?

  You're like, well, my mom raised me and she did a great job. And then you're like, well, my mom raised me and she did a great job.

• 30:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 30:07Jay Shetty?

  And now it's like, my mom's better than your mom.

• 30:09Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 30:09Jay Shetty?

  And and it's, you know, but that's.

• 30:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 30:11Jay Shetty?

  That is what people are, those are the conversations people are having.

• 30:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 30:14Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like, that's what you're hearing too.

• 30:16Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes, I'm hearing that a lot. When people have the experience of letting go of the right, wrong, either or. When they work through problems in a different way, they it does get internalized and people. Get the hang of it and the and the good feeling of, oh, my God, it's not. My ego doesn't have to be at stake with every discussion. Or right, wrong is not the only way to think about things. There there are like so vast other ways to think about difference. And when you get into the groove of that, the world opens up.

• 30:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I think we need to give people a vocabulary for that.

• 30:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 30:57Jay Shetty?

  And and it's really hard when we've lived in a very logical, rational world.

• 31:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Jay Shetty?

  Where like you learned math and there was something, there was a right answer.

• 31:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 31:07Jay Shetty?

  And there was a wrong answer.

• 31:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right, although even in math, it's not true. There are many ways to get to a solution.

• 31:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but the way we were taught in school.

• 31:15Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 31:16Jay Shetty?

  There was always a right and wrong answer, so we don't really have the ability like. And I keep coming to art as a way of talking about it. It's like.

• 31:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:24Jay Shetty?

  Art just doesn't have a lot of right and wrong.

• 31:27Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:27Jay Shetty?

  It's just taste.

• 31:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:29Jay Shetty?

  And taste can taste is not good or bad. It's just taste. It's just like.

• 31:33Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Jay Shetty?

  You could put a color that doesn't make sense next to another color. And it could work and it could not work, but you're not looking at it in a binary way. You have a reason for why it's placed there.

• 31:45Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:46Jay Shetty?

  And and I think we've in in trying to get to right and wrong, we've lost our reasoning power.

• 31:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:53Jay Shetty?

  Like, why am I doing this? Why are we doing this? How are we behaving?

• 31:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 31:56Jay Shetty?

  How quickly do you know when you meet someone whether they're going to make it or not?

• 32:00Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  A couple?

• 32:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 32:01Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You know, I don't make quick judgments. I really refrain from that because I think humans to me. I mean, and I've been working as a psychologist and analyst for many years. But humans to me remain in in principle, remain a certain kind of mystery. There's something about humans that is like ever surprising to me. And when a couple walks in.

• 32:31Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  They might look like they have like the most intense kind of hair raising problems. My general approach is I want the mystery of why they're together and what they're trying to have with each other reveal itself and I wanna line up with that part of them. So I try, really try not to rush to any kind of judgment, oh, these guys are never gonna make it. I mean, there are certain things that, let's say, bother me when, with couples, I mean, when they're very committed to a certain stance of, let's say, contempt or put downs or if you want, you can call it abuse, although abuse is a complicated word nowadays.

• 33:17Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But there's a certain kind of, um.

• 33:20Jay Shetty?

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• 34:04Jay Shetty?

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• 34:33Jay Shetty?

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• 35:16Jay Shetty?

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• 35:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Pleasure in sadism that some couples develop. They get hooked on a certain kind of sadomasochistic dynamic that I'm not into. And if I can't convince a couple, most couples want to get out of that. They don't enjoy it. I'm not talking about kink. I'm talking about like a pernicious kind of mutually destructive way of engaging. And if I can't convince a couple to move out of that mode, if there's something that is too tempting for them, then either I think you guys should just break up and stop torturing each other, or I'm just not the right person for you. I don't want to be in the presence of that.

• 36:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But mostly people are not into that. They might get stuck in that kind of pattern and they look for me to help them. But most people want to get out of that and they go for the honey. You know, they go for the good if you just help them figure out how.

• 36:24Jay Shetty?

  If a couple's stuck in the blame game. Like, look, this is all your fault. And then the other person's like, well, I've been trying my best, you know, but it's really what you've been doing. How do you start rewiring that conversation? What does it take? What are the steps to getting out of the blame game, which seems to be such a commonplace?

• 36:42Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right, it's big.

• 36:45Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  There's no, there's no one way, because people get stuck in that blame game, which is pernicious for different reasons. My job, and when people are in that kind of pattern, is to convince each of them to kind of release the grip they have, like be a little less convinced and sure about their own narrative. Just get a little less stubborn about your narrative and start getting curious about other ways to see things. And then start getting curious about yourself. Rather than hyper-focus on your partner and put everything outside,

• 37:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  like try to pull back from that hyper-focus and start asking yourself questions. Why does this thing bother me so much? What is the thing that is like making me crazy? Like if, if we went back to like the example of like the, the dinner parties, like why is it so important to clean right after? What's the fear? If the, if the dishes sit there for another two hours, what, what's the issue? Like, look back at yourself. Don't focus on your partner. What's he doing, not doing? What's getting stirred up in you? And usually you find really interesting things there. Like when people are really willing to like pull away from their partner and look into themselves, they're like, oh, this is really interesting.

• 38:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  This is kind of reminding me of blah, blah, blah. And then suddenly it's less about the partner and there's a whole world to discover about yourself. And, and, and the whole intensity of blame goes down. And then people get curious about each other. You know, and you're gonna be like, oh, yeah, I noticed that your mom is like so fastidious and she's so afraid of germs. And what happened to her when she was a kid? And like a whole world opens and, and the whole blame thing becomes less interesting.

• 38:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I remember doing that for myself and realizing, I thought I'd been tolerant of my partner and then realized my wife's actually been so tolerant of me.

• 38:51Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:51Jay Shetty?

  Like you have that kind of. One eighty degree view where you just go, wait a minute, I thought I was the one like doing everything.

• 38:58Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 38:59Jay Shetty?

  But that's because I never kept score on her scorecard.

• 39:03Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 39:03Jay Shetty?

  Right? It was very easy for you to always look at things through your lens.

• 39:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Totally.

• 39:08Jay Shetty?

  You can always count the amount of overtime hours you did.

• 39:10Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 39:11Jay Shetty?

  It's the same at work. You can always count the amount of effort you've put in.

• 39:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 39:14Jay Shetty?

  You never see anyone else's effort. You never see, and, and we also miss the, like when our partner lets us off with bad behavior or a bad mood. You don't take note of that.

• 39:25Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  No.

• 39:25Jay Shetty?

  But then when your partner, when you, you know, react to your partner's bad mood or whatever, you're like, oh my God, look, I held back and.

• 39:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Jay Shetty?

  I was so gracious.

• 39:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Doing that for me.

• 39:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, why don't you do that for me?

• 39:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But when you, you, you're, you're describing this change in you. The thing that is interesting to me, and I, I often try to bring couples' attention to that is. I would assume that when you had that change, it actually felt really good.

• 39:54Jay Shetty?

  Oh, for sure.

• 39:55Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right? People are so afraid that they're gonna lose something, but they gain something. When they go through that change, that's what I was talking about earlier, like the world opens and, and good feelings come in, like. Oh, we're both in it together. We're not like, oh, she's bad, I'm good. And like, she's to blame. And it's suddenly like, oh, we're both human. Together. We're both flawed. We're both awesome.

• 40:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. What happens when objectively someone is being genuinely taken, taken advantage of? So it's like they're doing all the chores, they're contributing fifty percent financially.

• 40:33Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Jay Shetty?

  Their feelings are not heard or seen.

• 40:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 40:37Jay Shetty?

  They're never validated. The person does actually have an expectation that you're meant to do all this. This is who you are. This is your role in life.

• 40:45Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Jay Shetty?

  How does someone think through that when they still feel the person's a good person and?

• 40:50Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  First of all, I have to say it's more rare than you'd think.

• 40:55Jay Shetty?

  Oh, interesting.

• 40:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah. It sometimes looks like that, like one person could be like, you know, like you're saying, doing all the work and the other person is like mooching off them and. But when you look at the relationship, often what you find is that they're contributing in some other very subtle way. It could be not something you can really put your finger on, but they're like the, let's say they're loyal to the couplehood. They're holding like the, the, the, the, whatever that thing of the boat is called, the keel of the boat.

• 41:29Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:30Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  They're, they're like the most romantic and holding on to the deepest idea of what the couple is despite all the fighting. Or they might be contributing in ways that are hard to account for. And, and it's important to, to unearth that and give each person a sense of what their contribution really is. Some of the work that I have to do with couples is make people aware and accountable for where they are being selfish. Because we all have an inclination to, as you said earlier, to only see our own work and only see our own point of view. And we're selfish and we're not even selfish, we're self-centered.

• 42:13Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  We've, we've got like, you know, the, the, our perceptive field and we don't really see the other. And working through that and, and getting to a more humble place where you understand that you've been more selfish and then in certain ways you are exploiting your partner. It's an important piece of the work. I have to go about it. It's, it's hard for all of us to acknowledge that. So I have to go about it gingerly and sensitively with people and, and give a lot of reinforcement for being willing to take on that less pretty part of ourselves.

• 42:51Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 42:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But ultimately, like you were saying earlier, it's, it's, it's a gratifying process. That, that's why it, it, it sounds almost like Pollyannaish or corny, especially nowadays. But I do believe in the goodness of people. We ultimately want what's good for our partner.

• 43:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's just that we want what's good for our partner, but.

• 43:18Jay Shetty?

  Maybe we don't know what's good for them.

• 43:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 43:22Jay Shetty?

  Right? And we often think we know what's good for our partner or right for our partner.

• 43:27Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 43:27Jay Shetty?

  And that's sometimes our greatest mistake.

• 43:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Jay Shetty?

  Because we're not really listening to them or

• 43:33Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 43:33Jay Shetty?

  taking in from them what they're saying and feeling.

• 43:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  We're self-centered, we're narcissistic in many ways. There's a way in which our worldview is limited by being, you know, the way, especially the way we're raised. I actually wonder what you'd think about this because I think it's very different in Western versus other cultures, but we're raised with such a focus on the self. I mean, there's a certain kind of narcissism built into our culture that makes it harder for us to be in in deep relationships. Do you have thoughts on this?

• 44:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I feel that to me, relationships have to be about growth and service. And I think we think that they're about pleasure and ease.

• 44:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, and self.

• 44:25Jay Shetty?

  And self. And that's what I mean by pleasure. Pleasure is always, the self is always linked to pleasure generally. And ease and comfort.

• 44:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 44:33Jay Shetty?

  And it's funny because growth and service are the exact opposite. So growth is the opposite of ease and comfort. And service is the opposite of self-centeredness.

• 44:42Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 44:42Jay Shetty?

  I've thought about it so often. I've grown so much more. And what I mean grown, I mean like challenged to grow by being in a relationship with my wife, in a healthy way.

• 44:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 44:53Jay Shetty?

  Than I have just had fun. So it's like, we have lots of fun, things great, but I've become a better human because of this relationship.

• 45:01Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Absolutely.

• 45:02Jay Shetty?

  On so many levels. I've become more self-aware. I've become less egotistical, I've become more conscious of my flaws. And it's happened all in a less judgmental way. And I think that's the part that I think people get wrong is that we say this is the person that we want to love forever. But they end up becoming the person we judge forever.

• 45:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 45:23Jay Shetty?

  And they become the person that we criticize forever. And they've become the person that we complain about forever. And the person you said you wanted to love forever becomes the person who actually gets the least loving part of you.

• 45:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 45:35Jay Shetty?

  And so when I say growth and service, I don't mean subservience when I say service. And I don't mean judgment when I say growth. Because I think a lot of people think, oh, well, if I'm going to point out all my partner's flaws so that they can grow. And I look, I'm helping them. And I'm like, well, no, that doesn't, you know, Roddy's never done that to me. And I think that's one of the reasons why we have a healthy relationship, because we both don't do that. We both feel like we're guiding and coaching each other on things we both opt in and say we want to work on.

• 46:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  What would you say if you had to characterize each of your basic stances towards each other? Well, how would you describe it?

• 46:14Jay Shetty?

  Oh, that's interesting. I don't know if I've even have the vocabulary for that. It's a great question. Um, I would say I am completely in awe of my wife. I love her. I find her to be the most adorable, wonderful human being. I could like look at a, you know, a video or a picture of her and I just, it's we've been together for 11 years and I'll just feel this like overarching feeling of love towards her. And that's my stance. I would have to ask her for this question, I guess.

• 46:41Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You know, you know.

• 46:42Jay Shetty?

  But if I had to perceive it, I think, I think if she was answering this in a question to you or when I wasn't in the room.

• 46:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 46:48Jay Shetty?

  I think she'd say that she has a deep sense of respect. And I don't want to use the word adoration out of context, but like there's a, if, if she's sharing how she feels with me in private or in a, in a special moment or through a friend who said something to me, it would, it would be that I think she just, she trusts me deeply. She has a very positive feeling towards me as a human, let alone just as a partner.

• 47:17Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah. That's amazing.

• 47:19Jay Shetty?

  And I do, yeah. And, you know, sometimes I have to get the hell of that, that you know.

• 47:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah. But that, but that's what you're describing, sort of what you're, it's like the space that you're creating for each other, right? To live in, that, that kind of basic stance. Like when you were asking earlier, like what, what are couples that will not make it? I mean, that's, that's what you want. You want the couple to create that kind of space between them to live in. That you're creating the world in which you're living.

• 47:50Jay Shetty?

  How do you encourage them to do that when they're saying to you?

• 47:55Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But he, but he, but he.

• 47:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, when I look at my partner, he's like, I know he's a good guy at heart. I, I know, I know he's, I know he means well. But he just, you know, all he does is watch football all weekend.

• 48:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right, right.

• 48:07Jay Shetty?

  And like, he always forgets my birthday. And you know, it's just like, it's always about like spending time with his family.

• 48:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 48:15Jay Shetty?

  And like, you know, I don't even think even, he never wants to talk about his feelings. Like, if that's what you're hearing.

• 48:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 48:21Jay Shetty?

  It's very different.

• 48:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And I do hear, I do hear that.

• 48:23Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. How do you encourage them to heal that?

• 48:26Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Well, hopefully, you know, to have that kind of stance that you described so beautifully, like that you each kind of provide for each other. First of all, it, you have to have that capacity inside you, right? Meaning it speaks to some way that you come into the relationship with a capacity to love. Right? Like a, a capacity to experience those kind of feelings towards another person. And then, which is great, and I believe most of us have that. I mean, most of us have enough good inside us that we have that. It's just now, how do you create the conditions where that is the thing that can come out?

• 49:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And couples come into treatment, basically, I often joke about the fact that couples come in basically saying, doctor, can you change my partner? That, that's like, they won't say it, but that's really why couples come into my office. Can you please change my partner? Everything will be okay if you just change her. But when you get people less invested in what we were saying earlier, like the blame, blame, blame, and he did this, she did that, and get them back into the, this feeling of awe about another person, this feeling of like, but actually look at them.

• 49:49Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  They're, they're just so wonderful in some elemental way, in some way that I know, I know their goodness. Remember that feeling, like approach them from that place.

• 50:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You're creating the conditions for that person to thrive. Right? When, when you're, when your wife looks at you with adoration, that's when your best self will come out. When your wife looks at you like, oh, you've fucked up again.

• 50:17Jay Shetty?

  For sure.

• 50:17Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You're just like, I don't care anymore. I'm, I'm gonna go play video games. Like, who needs that? Right? So you're, you're, by the way, you're looking at your partner, you're inviting certain parts of themselves out. And I remind people of that. We respond to each other. We respond to the gaze, to the, the music we're sending each other. And it, it invites different parts of us out.

• 50:42Jay Shetty?

  What about when someone feels I've given them too many chances? I've, I've given them that lens for too long.

• 50:49Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:49Jay Shetty?

  And they're just not shifting, but they've not done anything terrible where I need to leave them. But they're also not making any progress on this path. And I kept looking at them with a loving lens, with a compassionate lens, but I just keep running out of patience.

• 51:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  In that case, I would need to hear from the partner what's going on. But I mean, some people, I mean, is the partner depressed? I don't know what, what's going on there. Like, if, if really a lot is on, is being offered, and the partner can't pick up on those nutrients, what's going on? Are they, maybe they're going through something. Maybe they're, maybe there's something completely different going on, on their end, some kind of grudge or something that they haven't had a chance to, to really articulate. I mean, that would be interesting for me if that happens. That's not the typical thing that happens between people.

• 51:43Jay Shetty?

  Interesting.

• 51:44Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I mean, typically, if you put good out, good will come back.

• 51:48Jay Shetty?

  And I like that idea of when you look at your partner in a certain way. It's what they feel and it's what you feel. And I think it goes back to that human need we all have is wanting someone to believe in us.

• 52:00Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Jay Shetty?

  There's such a feeling, like I believe everyone has that at the core.

• 52:04Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Of course.

• 52:05Jay Shetty?

  Like everyone, but, but there's very few people who believe in you, or at least you make you feel that way.

• 52:09Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah. It starts, obviously, you know, you know, I'm a psychoanalyst, I'm eventually gonna go back to childhood, but it starts with the way whoever raised you looked at you. Like, what was the, you know, it doesn't have to be the mother, but what was the look in your mother's eye? When she saw you? Did the mother's eyes ultimately sparkle and like, oh, my baby? Or did the mother always say, ugh, you're always disappointing? Right? There, there's like this basic way in which we're invited into the world or not that stays with us. And, and that's a powerful kind of early, early platform from which we operate.

• 52:54Jay Shetty?

  What's the first hard question you should ask yourself in a relationship?

• 52:59Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I would say, um,

• 53:06Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  maybe, am I ready to let someone else in?

• 53:16Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  With their otherness? With the challenge to my narcissism? Am I ready for that? This is sort of following everything we've been saying.

• 53:28Jay Shetty?

  That's a great question.

• 53:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Can I give?

• 53:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, can I give?

• 53:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 53:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And can I hold space?

• 53:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:36Jay Shetty?

  For someone else to have to go through their transformation?

• 53:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 53:40Jay Shetty?

  Because chances are they're not going to come fully formed.

• 53:43Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 53:44Jay Shetty?

  And even if they're perfect on my wedding day or right now, chances are they're gonna go through stuff.

• 53:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 53:52Jay Shetty?

  And being honest with myself, because I think sometimes we feel guilty. I know a lot of people who say to me, Jay, I would have stayed with him. Like they're someone that they're dating, they're not married, they're not in a committed relationship. They're like, I would have stayed with him, but. I don't think I can for what he has to go through and grow through.

• 54:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Wow.

• 54:12Jay Shetty?

  You know, he's not ambitious. He needs to figure out his career. He's struggling with his mental health. Like, I don't know if I wanna be the person to go through with him.

• 54:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right, although I would also say in that case.

• 54:27Jay Shetty?

  You're not ready.

• 54:28Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You're not ready and no one wants to be in a relationship where their partner is just waiting for them to change for the relationship to really start. You wanna feel like your relationship is your home, not the future home you're gonna have if you change.

• 54:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 54:45Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  There's a certain level of acceptance that has to happen. Of course, we wanna change and get better and grow with each other, but you can't really be in a conditional relationship. I'm gonna love you when you change. I'm gonna be generous with you when you change. That's not the real thing.

• 55:02Jay Shetty?

  That is what people want.

• 55:04Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's, that's not gonna work.

• 55:07Jay Shetty?

  I literally feel like we find someone that we find attractive

• 55:10Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:11Jay Shetty?

  and that we enjoy our time with, and then we wanna change everything else about them.

• 55:15Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  True.

• 55:16Jay Shetty?

  Like, that's literally what we're looking for. Cause you'll meet people who like, they'll find the person who actually has everything set up for the future, but we're not attracted to them and we don't like hanging out with them.

• 55:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:25Jay Shetty?

  And so we're like, oh, I can't be with you, obviously. But then we, the opposite, we're like, oh, yeah, you're my person. I'm attracted to you. We love hanging out and having drinks and we have good banter and we can, you know, we can spar verbally.

• 55:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Jay Shetty?

  And you must be the perfect person for me, even though I don't like anything about your actual life.

• 55:44Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Well.

• 55:45Jay Shetty?

  Like, you're not ambitious. You don't have a good career. You don't make enough, like, all the stuff that we think's important, right?

• 55:50Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I would probably frame it differently.

• 55:52Jay Shetty?

  Please.

• 55:53Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I would say the person that you really kind of get hooked onto and feel like you are the person I wanna be with probably has in them components of things that are really important for you to revisit and work on that are not easy.

• 56:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And

• 56:14Jay Shetty?

  But you don't know that.

• 56:15Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You don't know that. You're just in your gut, you're terribly attracted to that person. And and no matter, all the other good partners that seem to have all the good qualities are not sticking. And then that one partner, that one person you keep going back to because there's something there. Then the preoccupation with wanting to change that partner is typically some way that you're working through something deep within yourself. Because, you know, ultimately, I mean, even when people talk about ambition or it's like, it's not about that. Like, why do you need your partner to be so ambitious? You go be ambitious if you want ambition. It's it's usually you're working through something.

• 56:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  There was a couple on the show that that were a great example of that. Where the woman started off with like really intense complaints about her husband, that he's not ambitious. And ultimately, we learned that a lot of it had to do with like her mom and father, like a repeat of some kind of old story that never got resolved between her parents. And she was totally working it out through her husband. And once she got focused on the parents and on her early history, she was suddenly back to like the best friendship in the world with her husband. They they were just like so adorable together.

• 57:39Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You know, it's it's often something else that creates this kind of, you gotta change for me.

• 57:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, because it reminds us of something from

• 57:48Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It reminds us of something that we haven't resolved or that your parents haven't resolved. Or it could be like, I mean, I don't know if we want to get into that, but it could be like something like politically that wasn't resolved. I'll just say in general that that couldn't resolve a certain issue of passports between them that had to do with one of them being Palestinian and like not having like statehood and would fight with their partner about passports, but it had nothing to do with the partner. Didn't even have to do with their own families. It had to do with Palestinian identity. All sorts of things make their way into What seems like an issue between the partners that come from really other places.

• 58:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  So I'm, I'm, when people start like blaming their partner for stuff, for me, it's like a riddle.

• 58:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 58:41Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  What is this really about?

• 58:42Jay Shetty?

  And those are the kind of questions that if we reflect on it ourselves too.

• 58:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:48Jay Shetty?

  It can help us so much. I mean, are you, do you find that are women more prone to be the fixes?

• 58:54Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  First of all, I think things are changing as far as genders. So it's a little hard to make

• 59:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  real statements about like women and men. But if I had to kind of say something general, I'd say women are, they're raised to be more kind of tuned in to the ins and out of a relationship and kind of take care of the relationship in a certain way in terms of like talking more, bringing feelings to the table. And men are more tuned in to like the frame around the relationship and, and a certain kind of loyalty over time. They, they, they add a certain rudder to the relationship. So it, it's different ways of tending to the relationship.

• 59:48Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But even that, it changes a lot. And of course, it then looks very different in queer relationships. So.

• 59:53Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 59:54Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But that's kind of my

• 59:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  crude generalization about women and men.

• 1:00:00Jay Shetty?

  How, how have you helped men who struggle to open up about their emotions, open up? Because I think sometimes there's a lot of pressure for a man to show up emotionally.

• 1:00:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:00:14Jay Shetty?

  But he may never have had that training or that vocabulary or that safe space.

• 1:00:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:00:20Jay Shetty?

  His whole life.

• 1:00:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Well, he probably has anti-training, right? Men, men are, I mean, again, it's different nowadays, but typically men are raised to disavow their feelings, focus on um power, protection. I mean, important functions, not, not to minimize that. There's, there's a lot of value in those, but, but they're, they're raised to turn away from their feelings. And I, what I do in my work with men is.

• 1:00:59Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I, in a way, teach them to pay attention to small hints about their emotional world. And they're always there, you know, stomach ache, tightness in the chest, a habit that is not good for them. And to follow those beginning hints and clues and try to get curious about what else can they tell me about their emotions? And when they start getting in touch with feelings, it's usually, it's very gratifying. It's, it's good to get in touch with your feelings. It feels good. You feel more grounded. Your, your, your world gets richer. And your relationships get better.

• 1:01:41Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  So it's, it's really starting from the little clues and, and developing curiosity. And then kind of developing a menu, like a vocabulary for all these little things that happen in you. Like from having like three words for feelings. Like I'm angry, I'm bored, I'm happy. You know, you can start expanding to 12 words and then eventually to like 70 words. And then, you know, it gets, it gets interesting.

• 1:02:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And I feel like people have to be patient.

• 1:02:16Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:17Jay Shetty?

  That's what I found in relationships the most. That a lot of us are waiting for everything to change at the next therapy session.

• 1:02:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Jay Shetty?

  The next 24 hours.

• 1:02:26Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Jay Shetty?

  The next argument. Or we just learned that in therapy, it should be solved now.

• 1:02:30Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:02:31Jay Shetty?

  And I'm like, you realize they've been practicing that habit for like 29 years.

• 1:02:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Generations.

• 1:02:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Jay Shetty?

  And generations, even more than 29 years.

• 1:02:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 1:02:40Jay Shetty?

  And so I just feel like we've lost our ability to be patient. Because there's so much choice.

• 1:02:50Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Jay Shetty?

  And there's a feeling that, well, someone must be able to do all these things.

• 1:02:54Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Jay Shetty?

  What do we do when we think that way?

• 1:02:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I'm a big advocate for, you know, slowness. I mean, psychoanalysis is a slow process. We spend like several times a week and over years, like slowly attending to things. I think when people are. Offered the experience of going through things slowly. They suddenly remember, oh, this is actually good for me. I mean, rather than scrolling through like a million quick videos or snippets of things or like just the headlines of news to sink into something is actually gratifying.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:03:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right? It's, it, it feels good.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does.

• 1:03:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You just have to be guided. You have to offer people a frame, like the analytic frame. Like people sit in my office, a couple sits for an hour without looking at their phones. And we're slowly working.

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• 1:05:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Through things, and then it feels good, and things really happen. So it's just having the experience.

• 1:06:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, let's, I want to focus on a different lifecycle part of relationships, when people are starting to date. Are there things that they can look for that show the sign of someone being a strong partner for them? Or a weak partner?

• 1:06:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You know, that so much happens early on when we just meet people, that is unconscious. So much is unconscious. Like years later, you'll, you'll be able to analyze why you really like this person, or what went wrong. So it's hard to make people really fully aware of what's moving them. I would say, listen to your gut. Your gut is telling you important things, and it might be telling you important things about yourself, about your own history. It might be telling you to keep repeating the same mistakes. Or it might be telling you something really worth listening to about the other person that is good, don't be afraid.

• 1:07:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  So listen to your gut. I would also say, listen to what the other person is telling you. People often disclose a lot about themselves right at the beginning, and we often don't listen. I know that from when patients come into my practice, and I'm having first sessions with people. Often people tell me everything right at the beginning, even, even in the way they, they're like late to a session, and the way they explain it. They might be telling me a lot about their whole life history, just, just in the very beginning. So listen, don't ignore information that's right in front of you. Like Hillary was actually telling me that

• 1:07:49Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  a friend of hers.

• 1:07:53Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Dated someone who,

• 1:07:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I think on their first date told her, "I have a suitcase of unpaid bills under my bed." And she thought it's funny

• 1:08:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  and ignored that. Of course, only later, later, later to find out. I mean, this person was like a mess.

• 1:08:14Jay Shetty?

  It sounded funny on the first day.

• 1:08:15Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It sounded funny, but they're telling you real information. So, listen, listen to what people are telling you. Listen is generally a good, a good piece of advice.

• 1:08:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. If someone tells you that they have a bad relationship with their parents, are there certain things to expect? Or is that too general?

• 1:08:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  First of all, that's an interesting piece of information, talking about listening. I would immediately get curious. Like, what, what is the person telling me? Is the person telling me something about early trauma? And I'd want to know what happened? And how did this person? What, what does it mean to not have a good relationship with a parent after trauma? So, I'd want to know what happened.

• 1:09:09Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And is the person you're getting to know, are they, did something bad happen to them with their family of origin? And they have developed a certain kind of wisdom where they know how to separate themselves from, from earlier traumatic experiences or not good experiences? And they've kind of formed their own personhood in a way that you can trust? Or is this, I mean, to the other end of things, is someone, in a way, stuck in something that they kind of have not found a way to work their way out of?

• 1:09:51Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And they're going to be forever stuck in a certain old pattern that they really need to be doing the work to move out of? So, you know, I mean, I'm giving two extremes. Like, one is I've had like something bad happen to me or this was not good and I'm I'm I've just worked my way out of it and I'm separate from this family of origin or on the other extreme is yeah, I hold a grudge and I'm forever begrudging these parents and really I'm gonna be repeating that in this relationship too because this is my life story, grudge.

• 1:10:31Jay Shetty?

  It's so hard because it seems like long term relationships, which is what we all want. Require three types of healing, like that person needs to heal, you need to heal. And then you need to heal together.

• 1:10:43Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:10:43Jay Shetty?

  And you need to make space for them to heal. They need to make space for you to heal. You need to make space for yourself to heal and then there's so much healing required.

• 1:10:53Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Jay Shetty?

  And it requires so much patience, compassion, empathy, like almost endless to some degree. Again, I'm not talking about abusive or, you know, uh violent relationships. We're talking about a relationship that's not abusive or violent. There's there's like endless amounts because you know, it's like things were great and then you had a child and then the child had challenges and then you went through that together and I've had so many friends this year go through a miscarriage and like that created new things in their relationship that they didn't have before because they both dealt with grief differently.

• 1:11:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, samsara. Life is, life is difficult. I mean, life's amazing, but life is full of I mean, you know, the Americans think that life is about pleasure and happiness. I mean, life is a challenge. I mean, there, I mean, death is embedded in life. I mean, life is full of difficulties. There's always loss, there's always a challenge. It's it's the stuff of life. And I welcome that.

• 1:12:01Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's what life is about.

• 1:12:03Jay Shetty?

  How do you know your relationship is strong enough? How do you prepare? Not that you can ever prepare for anything like that, but how do you know you're in a strong, healthy relationship? Because I think up until now, the only marker we've had, which I don't agree with, is we never argue. So a lot of people will be like, oh, I have a great relationship. We never argue, right? Which is

• 1:12:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That sounds scary.

• 1:12:24Jay Shetty?

  Hundred, I agree, but I feel like that's been our only metric.

• 1:12:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Jay Shetty?

  Of how we perceive. If we say someone has a great marriage, like, they never argue. Have you seen them? Like, it's great, right? Like, it's not, we don't have more than that. We don't have a bigger grading exercise.

• 1:12:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:41Jay Shetty?

  We, we do Lent. So we say, oh, they've been together for thirty years. They must have a great marriage. So we use Lent as a marker of success.

• 1:12:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:12:48Jay Shetty?

  We use not arguing or like they rarely have, you know, disagreements or whatever it may be as a marker of success. And we have, oh, they have a beautiful family, like if they have kids and it's

• 1:12:58Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Jay Shetty?

  It feels like we have very basic markers to assume that someone has a healthy relationship. How do we make sure we're in a strong, healthy relationship? What does that look like?

• 1:13:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  First of all, I would say that, what we said earlier, that kind of stance.

• 1:13:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  When you spend time with a couple, when you spend time with a couple, you have, they have, they build a certain, there's a way that there's an atmosphere around them that you can, it's palpable. And if the atmosphere around them is of a certain kind of mutual respect, adoration, a certain kind of acceptance, that is, that is a good relationship. That is a good world to live in. They've created a world in which they, there, there is space for them to thrive. So it's, it's sort of the music of our relationship. Is it a music of like mutual respect, adoration? Or is it a, a, a music of gotcha? This is where you failed.

• 1:13:59Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  This is where you messed up. So that's one dimension. I would say if a couple is, uh, changing.

• 1:14:09Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Together, meaning is there room for each of them to change at their own speed and together as a couple? Do they go through changes and evolutions? That's a really good quality of the relationship, that it's, you know, that it doesn't break under pressure, but it changes under pressure. That's, that's a very strong quality. I mean, couples that don't argue scare me. I don't know what, how they, what, what happens there? What, do they just not talk? Or do they not reveal ways in which they're different? Or, that's scary.

• 1:14:45Jay Shetty?

  Tell me more on that, I like that.

• 1:14:48Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Like, what, how do you not, never argue? Like, what, are you just the same person? Have you, have you become like enmeshed with each other and everything about you that is different, you just repress or dissociate? Are you so afraid of conflict? Are you, where are you each? Have you vanished? It just seems unreal. I think the ability to face differences, and, and back to what we were talking about earlier, find, how, how have you faced your differences? How do you work through your differences? Is what's really interesting about a relationship. And that's where it's life is.

• 1:15:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But can I ask you, what would you say?

• 1:15:34Jay Shetty?

  I, I really appreciate.

• 1:15:35Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  About the markers of like a good relationship?

• 1:15:37Jay Shetty?

  I really appreciate your answer. I think it's, um, it's, it's, it's unique. I've, I've not heard those things before, and I appreciate that a lot. I think one where both people don't expect the other person to value what they value, but they allow the other person to have their values and they have their own.

• 1:15:59Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:00Jay Shetty?

  And both people respect each other's values, but they don't want the other person to believe as strongly about theirs.

• 1:16:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:08Jay Shetty?

  As they do the others.

• 1:16:09Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:10Jay Shetty?

  Because I just think that. That's pretty difficult if you're honest.

• 1:16:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:15Jay Shetty?

  It's easy if you're living at a surface level and a superficial level to be like, oh, we both value family. And it's like, well, you don't really, like, maybe it's second on your list, but first on your list is your career. Let's just be honest. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's be honest about it. And hey, for fa- it's not really family, it's specifically your kids. It's not the whole family. So let's really be, let's get really honest about that. And then we may realize we have different values. That doesn't break our relationship because I respect and we know where we stand. So I think that's a sign of a healthy relationship, where we can be really, that's what I think honesty is. I don't think honesty is, I did this, what did you do?

• 1:16:54Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Jay Shetty?

  That's a part of honesty, but the real honesty is like.

• 1:16:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It's like the depths of your, what you believe in.

• 1:16:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, what I really, can I really tell you what I believe in?

• 1:17:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:02Jay Shetty?

  And you're okay with it.

• 1:17:04Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:04Jay Shetty?

  And of course, when that changes, it can be hard.

• 1:17:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:07Jay Shetty?

  And I think that's a sign of a good relationship is how we deal with new information and change.

• 1:17:12Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:13Jay Shetty?

  And that doesn't mean you have to stay together if the information is not what you wanna hear or isn't right for you. But I think a strong and healthy relationship is where you are okay with most changes. And you're able to flow rather than saying, well, you're not the same person. You, you were, I thought you were this.

• 1:17:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:17:33Jay Shetty?

  And they're like, yeah, we've been together for ten years. And so I think a healthy relationship is one that allows for different iterations of each other.

• 1:17:41Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:42Jay Shetty?

  And what that comes with. And rather than trying to hold on to the person you had on your wedding day.

• 1:17:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:17:47Jay Shetty?

  You're open to the idea that they're actually gonna be different every day and every decade.

• 1:17:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Jay Shetty?

  I would say a healthy relationship is one where you don't depend on the other person for everything.

• 1:17:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Jay Shetty?

  When you have other people in your life, your friends, your family, your parents, you have other people you can turn to, as well as turning to your partner.

• 1:18:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:08Jay Shetty?

  But it isn't an over dependence on them, or it isn't the opposite, which is an over reliance on everyone else and no dependence on them.

• 1:18:17Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:18:17Jay Shetty?

  When it comes to my relationship, I talk to my partner.

• 1:18:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:20Jay Shetty?

  When it comes to other stuff, I have other people to talk about it with, right? Like that balance of, if we're talking about issues in the relationship, I don't need to talk to someone else. I need to talk to my partner about it. They're the person I need to go to.

• 1:18:30Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:18:30Jay Shetty?

  But if I have issues with. Something that came up today and actually I love venting with my mom or my brother or whatever, then that's who I'm gonna turn to.

• 1:18:39Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:39Jay Shetty?

  So that's what comes to mind at least.

• 1:18:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah. And can I go back and ask you, I'm just curious what you think about like what for you is like a a sign of a bad relationship?

• 1:18:50Jay Shetty?

  I wanna ask you too.

• 1:18:55Jay Shetty?

  I have a really interesting perspective on love and relationships and it comes from my mom. Like I believe my mom made me believe that I was lovable and that I feel that in my core. And so giving love for me feels very easy because I feel like I was showered in it since I was a kid. And when I say love, I mean love, I don't mean things, I don't mean stuff, I don't mean. I mean, I think my mom loves me and I've always felt that my mom's love was a shield to early trauma that I did experience but didn't penetrate the shield. And so I feel very lucky. So I feel like I could love the whole world and never run out.

• 1:19:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's awesome.

• 1:19:37Jay Shetty?

  And it's, and it comes from my mom. My mom gets the credit for that.

• 1:19:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Wow.

• 1:19:41Jay Shetty?

  And what you were saying when you were like, does that mom have that look in her eyes?

• 1:19:44Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I was like, my mom has that. I could totally resonate. I was like, yeah, that's my mom. So.

• 1:19:49Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's why you couldn't.

• 1:19:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, so I have an unlimited, I feel an unlimited, and of course I feel very connected to God, I feel connected to Source. So I feel a very unlimited sense of love.

• 1:19:58Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Jay Shetty?

  It shows up in different ways. Sometimes setting love is setting boundaries and not over giving or compassion fatigue and, you know, all those things have to be taken into account. But I think when you ask me what's a sign of a unhealthy relationship or a bad relationship, I think it's when I feel that we're both only looking at the other person's mistakes. We're not looking at our own.

• 1:20:27Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:27Jay Shetty?

  And we're looking for all accountability to be taken by the other person.

• 1:20:32Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:33Jay Shetty?

  And not ours. And we're not willing to, at certain times, be potentially the savior of the relationship.

• 1:20:43Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:44Jay Shetty?

  When we're thinking, well, they should be doing it too. And I think a healthy relationship is recognizing some days you're gonna carry me.

• 1:20:50Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50Jay Shetty?

  And some days I'm gonna carry you.

• 1:20:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:53Jay Shetty?

  And yes, it may have looked like I carried you for the last two years, but you may carry me for the next two.

• 1:20:58Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Jay Shetty?

  And I don't want to live in a world where we're counting every day, whether everything is fifty fifty.

• 1:21:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:05Jay Shetty?

  Because I don't think it works that way. And my wife was, they were, you know, when we first got married and we moved to New York, and she was away from her family, and she never once complained to me. She missed her family a lot. And she told me she missed them.

• 1:21:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Where, where's her family?

• 1:21:21Jay Shetty?

  In London.

• 1:21:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Jay Shetty?

  And she missed her family a lot, but she didn't complain to me. She didn't nag me. She didn't tell me like, it was all my fault that she was away from her family. And so I know she tolerated a lot. And at the same time, all I wanted was for her to be with her family because I knew how much that meant to her. And I would say that in those early years, she was so patient and so tolerant with the fact that we'd moved here for my work and my mission and, and my purpose. And I was living my dream. But a part of my dream is also seeing her happy. So my dream wasn't complete either.

• 1:21:53Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:21:53Jay Shetty?

  But I think the point is she carried me in those years because she didn't feel like a weight. She could have, but she chose not to. Even though she was honest about how she felt, but it wasn't like it was my fault. It didn't feel projected on to me.

• 1:22:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:08Jay Shetty?

  And then she's been through such an evolution in the last couple of years where her role in our life has changed, her career has taken off, her purpose has blossomed. So much has happened and I feel I've been there for her. While she's been finding herself.

• 1:22:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23Jay Shetty?

  And discovering herself. And I've been open to that. I'm like, But if she was like, looking at it in the early days and was like, I moved for you.

• 1:22:30Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:30Jay Shetty?

  I did all this for you. What are you doing for me? You're just living your dream.

• 1:22:34Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:34Jay Shetty?

  If she said that to me, I don't know if we would have survived.

• 1:22:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:22:37Jay Shetty?

  And then now, when she needed a partner to give her space to blossom and grow, if she would have left me before for all those reasons or whatever, then she may not have found a person who is willing to. And I wasn't doing it because she did it for me. I was doing it because I love her.

• 1:22:50Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:51Jay Shetty?

  And I think that's what it is. You're motivated from a place of, it's not like I'm counting. I'm just doing this because I love you. I'm not, I'm not doing this because.

• 1:22:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

• 1:22:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, does that make sense? I don't know. Sorry, I took a windy road to explain it.

• 1:23:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  No, no, no. It's, it also ties to a few of the things we've been talking about. It's sort of, it even ties to like, the question of like, if someone says, I'm estranged from my family of origin. Like again, is it like a stance of like, they didn't do enough for me, grudge, grudge, grudge? Or is it a stance of, I'm taking responsibility for myself?

• 1:23:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And, and I think it all comes down to the, the old wisdom of just, what can I do? What can I control? What can I, what can I focus on? It's not about what I can't control and

• 1:23:35Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:35Jay Shetty?

  what I don't think about.

• 1:23:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Or the blame game.

• 1:23:37Jay Shetty?

  Or the blame game. I was gonna ask you about some more of those things, actually. Like, what are your thoughts on, how often do you hear the word gaslighting in the office? Is it common?

• 1:23:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, there, there are a bunch of words that I hear a lot now in the office that I think come from TikTok.

• 1:23:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:55Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Gaslighting, um,

• 1:24:00Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  triggers, trauma.

• 1:24:02Jay Shetty?

  Love bombing.

• 1:24:03Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Love bombing. Yeah, recently there was a lot of love bombing. I'm like.

• 1:24:07Jay Shetty?

  What are your reactions to this word? So when I say the word love bombing?

• 1:24:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:11Jay Shetty?

  What are your initial, what are your instant thoughts?

• 1:24:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  My instant thoughts are, first of all, I'm old.

• 1:24:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Because I I came in with a different vocabulary.

• 1:24:26Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And I typically ask people to, or there's another one, activated. I'm activated. That's people are using that a lot, triggered and activated.

• 1:24:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I typically ask people to, I like play dumb and I say, tell me what you mean. I don't know what you mean. Because usually the the way people use these words is they have a feeling about something, but they don't exactly know what that something is. So they grab a word, I guess, from TikTok that kind of supposedly captures it. And then they're done thinking. They stop investigating themselves or they stop really, they're just like, aha, I found the culprit, gaslighting. That's what's happening to me. I don't have to think about it anymore. Someone is bad, you know, it's usually.

• 1:25:18Jay Shetty?

  I love that. I agree with you.

• 1:25:19Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, it's usually a lot more complicated than I found the word and someone is bad.

• 1:25:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's almost a relief we feel when we find the word.

• 1:25:26Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:27Jay Shetty?

  But actually.

• 1:25:28Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  He's a narcissist. He's a narcissist. He's gaslighting me.

• 1:25:32Jay Shetty?

  So I feel like the world has, everyone feels like they've dated a narcissist.

• 1:25:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:38Jay Shetty?

  How accurate are they?

• 1:25:39Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  A hundred percent accurate because we all have parts of ourselves that are narcissistically oriented, meaning they are to protect our sense of self. Some people move more to the extreme and they're really like deeply wounded and and have to spend a lot of energy protecting themselves and working around their ego. But most of us in certain situations were provoked to behave in more narcissistic ways. And when we're offered other conditions, we can be more open and interested in the world. So it's usually the way it's used in pop language.

• 1:26:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It's usually just like a word that covers up a whole other world of things. I think when people talk about I've dated a narcissist, they're like, that person didn't give me enough attention.

• 1:26:35Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And what's that about that? There could be so much there. Like, what went on between the two of you? Why? What happened? Where were you in that? It's... It doesn't tell you much.

• 1:26:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. I'm so happy to hear that because I do think that the word is relief. And it's not that it's wrong. It's just that don't stop unpacking it there.

• 1:26:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:56Jay Shetty?

  So those words are really helpful for you to categorize, summarize your experience. But don't feel that that's the end of the investigation. Like, there's so much more.

• 1:27:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Exactly.

• 1:27:07Jay Shetty?

  And you're actually doing yourself a disservice.

• 1:27:10Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, and the moment you're thinking about, I found a word that finds all the problem outside of me, you're deluding yourself.

• 1:27:18Jay Shetty?

  When you find couples come in with financial issues, is it really about money?

• 1:27:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Money is a big issue for people. Money is a big issue for people. You know, the question of money, one of the questions that people, that couples deal with when they're fighting or debating about money is the deep question of mine versus ours. What's mine? And what are we sharing? And the most concrete version of it is money, but it's everything. It's time, it's attention, it's airtime, it's sex. It's so much is like mine versus ours. But money is like, especially in our culture, money is like the most concrete way to talk about it and to fight about it.

• 1:28:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Like, if you're making more money than your spouse or than your partner, who pays for dinner? Like, what's the vibe between the two of you? Is it shared money? Or is it, no, we're still going Dutch? Right? Fights about money are about the concreteness of money, but they're also about where do I begin and end? And what's us together? And then there's a whole other thing with money, which is, money is also something to do with our relationship with reality.

• 1:28:42Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right, you, you, I mean, back to the idea of someone hiding a suitcase with bills, unpaid bills under the bed. Like, how realistic is your relationship with reality, with what you have, with what you're making? Like, when people talk about money, they're talking-

• 1:28:57Jay Shetty?

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• 1:30:31Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Talking about reality in certain ways. I usually ask people, how do you think money should play out between the two of you? If you're making more money than your partner? What is your ideology on this? What do you really think should happen? Does that give you more power? Does that mean you should be making more of the decisions? Does that mean your partner should be paying for less? How do you think about it? Each of you, just what's your basic ideology? Which is hard for people to acknowledge, right? They wanna feel like, no, money doesn't matter. But it matters to everyone in some way or another. They have an ideology. So are they willing to put it on the table?

• 1:31:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  To be honest with how they think about it? And then, once you compare these ideologies, then we can have a discussion. It's back to the idea of like the couple creating their political backdrop. Like, what is the politics of this relationship? Are you like socialist or are you capitalist? Are you? What's your economic system?

• 1:31:38Jay Shetty?

  What if we disagree? What if we vote differently?

• 1:31:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  You probably will disagree. On some level, you will. Somewhere, you will disagree. And then it's gonna get interesting. It's gonna be like a congress, like, right? Debating what's the right way to do it. But it's better to have that debate on the table rather than act it out in those like, what was that film? There was that, oh my god, it's a film in which there's a shipwreck. There's this couple that are sitting at the dinner table and they're looking at each other, like, who's gonna pull out the credit card?

• 1:32:09Jay Shetty?

  Oh, I don't know.

• 1:32:10Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Brilliant scene. Everything about their relationship was in that scene.

• 1:32:16Jay Shetty?

  I don't know.

• 1:32:16Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  With her kind of pretending she lost her card.

• 1:32:20Jay Shetty?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:32:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And him reluctantly pulling out his credit card. And then there was, it was just like, perfect.

• 1:32:28Jay Shetty?

  I was thinking of a movie called Fair Play.

• 1:32:30Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I didn't see that.

• 1:32:31Jay Shetty?

  Did you see that?

• 1:32:31Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I heard about it, I didn't see it.

• 1:32:33Jay Shetty?

  I would think you'd, I don't know if you'd enjoy it. I don't know your taste in movies, but I think it's pretty interesting. It's a story about, it's a movie made about a couple who are competing for the same job because they work at the same company.

• 1:32:46Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Oh.

• 1:32:46Jay Shetty?

  But it's really dark. And it really goes into that, the psychology of competition, gender roles, the pay gap.

• 1:32:55Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Jay Shetty?

  Everything comes to play.

• 1:32:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:57Jay Shetty?

  And it shows how it affects them from the bedroom to the boardroom to everywhere.

• 1:33:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Awesome.

• 1:33:02Jay Shetty?

  It's really well done. Yeah, it's really well done. It just, it just shows you what's going on inside of our heads that doesn't often come out. And and and just how we all feel. And it's so interesting how society and all of this has such a play on how we feel about

• 1:33:20Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:21Jay Shetty?

  our role and who we are. Today, we have so many more people to look at and view and see how their lives are going. I had I had a friend who his girlfriend made more money than him.

• 1:33:31Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:32Jay Shetty?

  And he did really well for himself, but she made more money than him. So she but she expected him to pay for everything. And she wanted him not only to pay for dinners and rent. And she wanted him to buy her a car. She because she believed that.

• 1:33:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Because he's a man?

• 1:33:49Jay Shetty?

  Because he's the man. Wow. That's how she should be treated.

• 1:33:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Interesting.

• 1:33:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that was for her.

• 1:33:54Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Imagine them having a conversation.

• 1:33:56Jay Shetty?

  They ended up breaking up.

• 1:33:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But what would their conversation sound like?

• 1:34:00Jay Shetty?

  Literally this. I deserve this. I'm a queen. I'm a princess. I'm like, this is how I should be treated. Like this.

• 1:34:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Do you think she would? She said something like that?

• 1:34:10Jay Shetty?

  She said stuff like this. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:12Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 1:34:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's amazing.

• 1:34:15Jay Shetty?

  And you see a lot of this language on TikTok and things like that about what a high value man is, what a high value woman is. And a lot of the language and vocabulary out there today.

• 1:34:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  What is what is meant by a high value man?

• 1:34:26Jay Shetty?

  I mean, there's lots of different definitions, but generally it's someone who does has a good career, makes a lot of money, does well for themselves. And, you know, that the the obvious definition of it.

• 1:34:37Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Well, it's not obvious.

• 1:34:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, no, but.

• 1:34:39Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  To me, it's not obvious.

• 1:34:41Jay Shetty?

  It is obvious, yeah. But it's just interesting to hear how these societal ideas kind of. Because then we're like, oh, but you're not with a high value man. You know, and and it's really interesting because in my world, a high value man would be someone who has good values.

• 1:34:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:34:56Jay Shetty?

  That's.

• 1:34:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  The good values being like ethics.

• 1:34:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, ethics. Yeah, exactly. Like character, moral character.

• 1:35:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Moral character.

• 1:35:02Jay Shetty?

  Strength and courage and bravery and.

• 1:35:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 1:35:05Jay Shetty?

  You know, honesty and.

• 1:35:06Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:35:07Jay Shetty?

  That's what I would consider a high value person. Forget a high value man.

• 1:35:10Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:11Jay Shetty?

  Um, and it's interesting how all this language at play kind of cascades ideas quickly, like you said.

• 1:35:17Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:18Jay Shetty?

  Because it's easier rather than saying I'm with a good man. It's easier to say I'm with a high value man. But, you know, what does that mean?

• 1:35:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:35:24Jay Shetty?

  Um, yeah, I was gonna ask you, do more people want more intimacy or more sex?

• 1:35:31Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I think it depends. First of all, it's. It's a complicated thing to draw the line between intimacy and sex.

• 1:35:39Jay Shetty?

  Oh, interesting, okay.

• 1:35:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And I think it depends very much on the stage of the relationship. Early on, one of the things, I mean, we all know that, one of the things that binds people, one of the strongest glues is sex, like, passion and excitement about each other and like, you know, wanting to get into bed together. And then, at some point, people start coming to terms with like differences, differences in scripts, differences in appetite. I know that the, the,

• 1:36:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  like, the stereotype is that men are more focused on sex and want more sex and women want less, or it's less important to them. I don't think that's actually true. I think, again, it's very hard to make generalizations and it changes between like,

• 1:36:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  straight and queer couples, so it's, it's really not necessarily about the biology, but,

• 1:36:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  but I think typically, there, there are different focuses for men and women. And then later in the relationship, things change because I think later in the relationship, the, the, the line between sex and intimacy gets very blurry. And I think generally, everyone wants both intimacy and sex. Everyone wants it and everyone wishes it for themselves and, and wants it in large quantities. Everyone needs it, but they focus on different things.

• 1:37:11Jay Shetty?

  And no one has energy for it.

• 1:37:12Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And no one has energy for it. And anyway, a lot of it is about wanting to feel desire of some sort.

• 1:37:21Jay Shetty?

  That's what it is.

• 1:37:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's really what it is. And not necessarily wanting, you know. Oh, I need to have it three times a week, or I need this, or I need that. It's a lot about the experience of desire and being desired. That is really kind of the thing we all want. To be living in desire, rather than living in a certain kind of deadness. That's ultimately what everyone wants.

• 1:37:48Jay Shetty?

  That's so powerful, because it goes back to what we were talking about earlier of like, we just want someone to believe in us.

• 1:37:53Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:53Jay Shetty?

  So we just want that feeling of like, I have value, I have something to give.

• 1:37:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yes.

• 1:37:57Jay Shetty?

  I'm wanted, I'm desired, I'm needed.

• 1:38:00Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And people want to feel desire, to feel desired and also to feel desire for the other.

• 1:38:06Jay Shetty?

  And it's so interesting, because it feels like our partners are the people that make us feel the least of everything. Because it's like, our partner makes us feel the least desired. Our partner makes us feel the least important. We almost have this worry that if I say too many nice things to my partner, they'll get a big head.

• 1:38:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:23Jay Shetty?

  Or if I'm too nice to them, they'll think that they're better than me. Like, I feel like there's a subconscious, this isn't something someone would say, but there's this subconscious belief of that I shouldn't honor my partner too much, because it almost puts me in a weak point.

• 1:38:38Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Like a zero sum, kinda?

• 1:38:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, like, it almost like a feeling of like weakness. Like, if I compliment them too much.

• 1:38:43Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:44Jay Shetty?

  I'm weaker in this relationship, because I'm the one who needs them more.

• 1:38:48Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It's the fear of vulnerability, of showing that you depend, showing that you need, showing that you desire, it puts you in a vulnerable place.

• 1:38:58Jay Shetty?

  Correct.

• 1:38:59Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah, but it's, I mean, I think people...

• 1:39:01Jay Shetty?

  But that's what everything is.

• 1:39:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  But yeah, people thrive in feeling wanted and appreciated. Anything that makes people more stingy, I think is problematic. I think stinginess, withholding is like destructive. Give more, give, give, give, give freely.

• 1:39:23Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Create a good environment around you.

• 1:39:25Jay Shetty?

  Orna, thank you for your time and energy today. You've been so gracious and I've genuinely loved talking to you. I felt like I had, I felt like I had so many new thoughts and ideas today, just being in your presence. And now I'm like, now I know what it feels like to be in the room with you.

• 1:39:39Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Ah, sweet.

• 1:39:40Jay Shetty?

  Honestly, I mean that, like I, I just felt like everything was firing in my mind and I was connecting dots that I haven't before. So, thank you. It was such a joy.

• 1:39:49Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  For me too, Jay. It was wonderful questions and I love all the, both the vignettes that you bring in that are immediately like, oh my God, the whole world is in this vignette and the questions you're asking, they're right at the core.

• 1:40:03Jay Shetty?

  Thank you. You're so kind. Uh, Orna, we end every on purpose interview, the final five. These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

• 1:40:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Okay.

• 1:40:11Jay Shetty?

  So, Orna, these are your final five.

• 1:40:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Okay.

• 1:40:14Jay Shetty?

  The first question is, what is the best relationship advice you've ever heard or received?

• 1:40:19Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Stay in your own lane.

• 1:40:20Jay Shetty?

  The best relationship. Why? How is that? How does that? Tell me.

• 1:40:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  It means don't intrude on someone else's journey. Like stay in your own lane. Do the thing you're supposed to do and live and let live.

• 1:40:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:35Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's, that's the best way to create a good environment for a relationship.

• 1:40:39Jay Shetty?

  Second question, what is the worst relationship advice you've ever heard or received?

• 1:40:43Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Don't let him get away with it.

• 1:40:45Jay Shetty?

  Hmm. Why is that bad advice?

• 1:40:47Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Cause that's paranoid. It's like a, like be suspicious, be paranoid. Don't give the benefit of the doubt. Guard your own. It's not a good attitude.

• 1:41:00Jay Shetty?

  Because?

• 1:41:01Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Because the way you, the way you approach, the way you look at a person, speaking of what we've, that's what you're gonna get back. If you're paranoid about someone, they're gonna be bad.

• 1:41:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And it steals your energy.

• 1:41:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  And it steals your energy. Right.

• 1:41:17Jay Shetty?

  Question number three, what's something you used to believe was true about couples?

• 1:41:22Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:22Jay Shetty?

  But now you have a different view on it?

• 1:41:24Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Maybe I used to believe that compatibility is the most important thing. And now I think.

• 1:41:36Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Like I said earlier, that the capacity to love someone who's different from you is the best source of growth.

• 1:41:46Jay Shetty?

  So well said. I love it. I'm like, I'm sold on that idea.

• 1:41:51Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Great.

• 1:41:51Jay Shetty?

  That's everything.

• 1:41:52Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Great.

• 1:41:53Jay Shetty?

  We've been spending too much time trying to find this like perfect match.

• 1:41:56Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:56Jay Shetty?

  Perfect fit, who's like, it's just like.

• 1:41:58Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:59Jay Shetty?

  There isn't. I think about that with my wife all the time. We are so different.

• 1:42:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:02Jay Shetty?

  We couldn't be more different.

• 1:42:04Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:04Jay Shetty?

  Like in every way, in so many ways.

• 1:42:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:08Jay Shetty?

  I'm a, I love being alone. She loves being surrounded by family, like.

• 1:42:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:12Jay Shetty?

  I'm, I'm super driven, focused, ambitious. She's fun, playful, doesn't take life seriously.

• 1:42:18Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That's great, though.

• 1:42:19Jay Shetty?

  Like, it's just, but it's so different.

• 1:42:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:21Jay Shetty?

  I'm always on time. I like order. I like structure. I like system. She believes in.

• 1:42:27Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Spontaneity.

• 1:42:28Jay Shetty?

  Spontaneity, you know.

• 1:42:29Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:30Jay Shetty?

  And so that initially did create so many rifts and challenges. Like, it was hard because it was like, I was ready to go on time. She's not.

• 1:42:40Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:40Jay Shetty?

  To me, that's a big issue.

• 1:42:42Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  That is hard.

• 1:42:42Jay Shetty?

  Big issue.

• 1:42:43Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:44Jay Shetty?

  I want systems in order. I want to plan our weekend out or our vacation. And she's like, let's just go and see how it goes. I'm like, that's like my worst nightmare is to like turn up somewhere and see how it goes. Like, what if it's booked?

• 1:42:54Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Right.

• 1:42:55Jay Shetty?

  What if the show's booked? What if the?

• 1:42:57Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:57Jay Shetty?

  Scuba diving's booked, like whatever it is, like, what if it's all booked? That's like my worst.

• 1:43:00Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  So how, how do you do it now? How do you do the lateness, not lateness?

• 1:43:06Jay Shetty?

  I realized that a lot of the things I wanted to be on time for didn't matter.

• 1:43:09Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:10Jay Shetty?

  There were things that were.

• 1:43:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:11Jay Shetty?

  And things that didn't.

• 1:43:12Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:12Jay Shetty?

  It was me holding myself to a standard that wasn't always necessary.

• 1:43:18Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:18Jay Shetty?

  It comes back to her with the plates. It was the same thing. It was like, sometimes it is important to be on time. Like today, it was important for me to be on time for you.

• 1:43:25Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:25Jay Shetty?

  Sometimes it's not important for me to be on time because it's casual and it's friends and you, everyone's kind of turning up and you've got a window to turn up in, like, but I still want to be there on time because that's just my training. Because my mom always told me, if you're not early, you're late. And so that comes from that training of just military discipline, which is what I live my life.

• 1:43:45Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:46Jay Shetty?

  So I had to learn that for the late thing. And then when it came on the um, the vacations, we planned, we both wanted one day on, one day off. So if we go on vacation for seven days.

• 1:43:58Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:58Jay Shetty?

  Three or four of the days are planned and three and four of the days are spontaneous. So we actually, I actually love that.

• 1:44:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:03Jay Shetty?

  It worked out. Whereas I used to do seven days planned, but that would exhaust me.

• 1:44:07Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:07Jay Shetty?

  And so now I'm like, oh, this is actually a healthier solution. So yeah, take it from there. Question number four, what is the most difficult relationship you've ever had to help or solve?

• 1:44:21Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I have, I have two things that come to mind. One is a relationship in which um, I did feel like one, one in the couple was just too, my explanation is that he was just too traumatized and he kept um, really viciously abusing his wife in my presence. Um, and I really tried everything and I believe they really wanted to change, but I, I tried everything and I had no impact on him, no impact. Like, he tried. I, I sent him to read books. I, I worked with him individually some, some of the time. I had to like,

• 1:45:05Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  remove him from the room, some of the sessions and, and do some work. I, I really put my heart and soul into helping them get out of this like, extreme form of like blame and abuse. And um, I did not make a dent. Aside from the fact that I felt bad that I couldn't help them, it was also really a toxic situation to be in. Like the, the sessions were just awful for me. Um, so that was probably the worst.

• 1:45:42Jay Shetty?

  And they didn't, they stayed together or?

• 1:45:45Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  They actually stayed together. They did. I mean, I think the work eventually did help them um, to some degree, but. It was awful.

• 1:45:55Jay Shetty?

  When do you know divorce is the right choice?

• 1:45:59Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  With that couple, I thought divorce was the right choice and they chose not to. I, I, I just couldn't imagine like, why would a family keep going with that level of toxicity? Um, I, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but they chose to stay together and that's, I mean, people live the way they want to live. What can I do? But that would have been a situation where I would say that the pain of divorce is worth it. Because you, I, I don't think it's a good idea to live in that kind of abusive, blamey environment day in, day out. Another difficult situation was a couple that I cared about deeply and I really, really

• 1:46:44Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  understood them. It wasn't abuse, but they couldn't, they couldn't stop repeating a certain pattern that was a direct replay of each of their childhood traumas. It wasn't abuse. It was just like issues around abandonment and that was very hard. The common denominator is situations where I'm, I'm doing my best and I can't affect change. That's hard.

• 1:47:14Jay Shetty?

  How do you deal with that?

• 1:47:16Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  I try hard. I'm like relentless. I mean, I, I will work with couples. I will sweat. I will put my heart into it. Um, I'll think about it later. I'll read. I'll talk to colleagues. So I, I, I try. Like if I take on a couple, I'm like in it. But ultimately, you know, stay in your own lane. People are gonna live their life. I'll, I'll bring the horse to the water. If they repeatedly won't drink, it's, I, I've got my life to live.

• 1:47:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Fifth and final question. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

• 1:48:02Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Okay. Do no harm.

• 1:48:08Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Do no harm.

• 1:48:10Jay Shetty?

  Beautiful.

• 1:48:11Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:12Jay Shetty?

  Lorna, thank you so much.

• 1:48:14Dr. Orna Guralnik?

  Thank you, Jay.

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