3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships

I'm going on tour! Come see The School of Greatness LIVE in person! Get my new book Make Money Easy here! What if the key to conscious love isn't finding the perfect partner, but mastering yourself first? In this powerful compilation episode, world-renowned experts Jay Shetty, Dr Joe Dispenza, and Esther Perel unpack the fascinating dynamics of conscious relationships, emotional healing, and lasting love. Through vulnerable personal stories and profound insights, they reveal how our approach to love often stems from unhealed trauma rather than conscious choice. Jay Shetty illuminates the critical differences between toxic and conscious love, offering practical wisdom for building healthier relationships. Dr Dispenza shares groundbreaking research on how emotional healing physically transforms our brain and body, while Esther Perel offers a masterclass in maintaining playfulness and curiosity in long-term relationships. Together, these wisdom-keepers illuminate a path to deeper self-awareness and more fulfilling partnerships, making this episode essential listening for anyone seeking to transform their relationship with love. In this episode you will learn:The crucial difference between toxic love (using relationships to serve your needs) and conscious love (taking care of yourself to bring your best to others)How holding onto resentment creates a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps you stuck in past patternsThe four subtle relationship killers most couples don't recognizeWhy playfulness and humor are diagnostic indicators of relationship health and essential tools for healingThe transformative power of forgiveness and how it liberates both yourself and othersFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1733For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Jay Shetty – greatness.lnk.to/1417SCDr. Joe Dispenza – greatness.lnk.to/1540SCEsther Perel – greatness.lnk.to/1546SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  There are two big things happening at one time that I've never done before. I'm going on a book tour for my new book, Make Money Easy, and I'm doing a podcast tour at the same time. It is going to be big and I'm going to seven cities in 10 days. Get your friends, get your family, bring everyone you know to these cities. I'm coming to Austin, Texas, New York, Boston. We're going to Nashville, then we're going to Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. Make sure to get your tickets right now. Go to LewisHowes.com/tour. Again, bring everyone you know. If you're looking to create more financial freedom and abundance in your life, and you want to see a massive guest live on the School of Greatness show,

• 0:45Lewis Howes?

  get your tickets. I can't wait to see you there.

• 0:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, what is the difference between toxic love and conscious love?

• 0:58Lewis Howes?

  Because I feel like a lot of people get into relationships based on a wound, and it causes, you know, toxic chemicals that might feel like love. But then they unwind after six months, a year, two years, and it feels like then it's not conscious love. That they got into it from a chemical romance, wounded, as opposed to conscious healing, integrating that into a relationship. What is the difference between toxic love and conscious love?

• 1:31Jay Shetty?

  Toxic love is where both people are working independently to use the relationship to serve their own needs. That's toxic love. And conscious love is where both people independently take care of themselves so they can bring their best self to each other. And where this often goes wrong is that toxic love turns into a competition. Toxic love now is who's doing more for each other? Who gives more love to each other? Who does more work around the house? You turn the whole thing into a competition, which is not teamwork.

• 2:13Jay Shetty?

  And conscious love is not saying you're the selfless one, it's you're making agreements. I think that's the mistake that love was constantly, conscious love was always like, be selfless, love more than the other person, give more. That's not healthy either. What's healthy is we're actually going to create boundaries. We're actually going to create agreements. We're actually going to create principles. We're going to create rules. The reason why I called the book Eight Rules of Love is my hope that it will inspire other couples to create their own list of rules in their own relationship. A conscious relationship is one that is built on a foundation of healthy agreements.

• 2:51Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 2:52Jay Shetty?

  Toxic love is, it's interesting when you look at the word toxic as well.

• 2:58Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 2:58Jay Shetty?

  So toxic love is when your trauma is the oxygen for your relationship. Right? If you think about the word, like the idea that your trauma is what you're breathing into the relationship.

• 3:12Lewis Howes?

  That is so true.

• 3:13Jay Shetty?

  Right? You're just breathing your trauma into the relationship. So you bring all your baggage, all your insecurities, and you're somehow expecting the other person to inhale it all and then figure out how to respond and react. Whereas a conscious relationship is saying that I have these things. I'm trying to heal them. I'm going to make my partner aware of what I'm healing because I'm not fully healed.

• 3:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 3:36Jay Shetty?

  And now that they're aware and I'm working on it, we can also work on it together. So I think we've also had this unhealthy idea of conscious love being, you're fully healed and then you come, it's like, that's not true. It's a journey. And so, but the thing about the journey is, are you working on yourself? Have you communicated to your partner what you're working on so that they can be aware? And thirdly, have you found a way to get support? I had a friend whose partner was addicted to porn. And they came up to me and they were saying that their partner feels shameful and guilty and wants to work on it. And I said, you have two choices. You can either leave them because you don't believe them and this affects you negatively, which it was.

• 4:19Jay Shetty?

  Or you can stay with them and support them through their journey because they want to change. It's not that you're forcing them to change.

• 4:25Lewis Howes?

  And they're honest about it, they're coming to you about it, they're vulnerable.

• 4:28Jay Shetty?

  Exactly, they're vulnerable, they're open about it, they're honest about it. And what I found in that scenario was that that person was able to support their partner, now they have a really healthy relationship. But the thing is that we can't also a toxic relationship is also when you use someone's trauma against them. So someone's been vulnerable with you about what they're struggling with. And now you use it as ammunition in an argument to shoot them down.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:55Jay Shetty?

  And so when people are vulnerable with you, and they're honest with you, and they're transparent with you, don't use that against them because basically you're saying to them, don't be honest with me. And I think that's this really interesting thing. We all say, I want someone who's honest. But then when someone says something honest that's uncomfortable, we say, no, no, no, I don't want your honesty, or I don't like that. And I think you push the other person away.

• 5:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:17Jay Shetty?

  And so, yes, if it's really if they share something that's really not aligned with your values, of course, you can leave and move on, but chances are if they're opening up about a journey they're on, it's worth giving it an opportunity to support them if they're serious about it.

• 5:32Lewis Howes?

  I love your definition of toxic love versus conscious love. And when I was hearing you say this, I was thinking that conscious love is also wanting to take emotional responsibility and accountability for emotions, as opposed to saying, you made me feel this way. You said this, you didn't do this, and it made me explode on you. It's having the emotional responsibility to to manage it. And if you aren't good at managing it, saying, I take full accountability. And I'm working on that healing journey. And I think that responsibility and accountability adds to the potential growth for conscious love.

• 6:11Jay Shetty?

  I love that. That's such a great point. It's such a great question, too, because you also realize that we have so many flawed views of conscious love, too.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 6:20Jay Shetty?

  And so people always think like, oh, toxic love, that's the worst. You could actually be doing pseudo-conscious love, and that's even worse sometimes.

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean? Like a spiritual bypass to conscious love?

• 6:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, or like you're practicing it in a really superficial way. Like it's conscious in the language and the way you talk about it, but you're doing unhealthy things. Like, for example, you could think you're in conscious love, but you can't deal with someone's honesty. You think you're in conscious love, but you don't feel comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. You think, oh, yeah, we just talk about good stuff and everything's positive.

• 6:55Lewis Howes?

  Perfect all the time.

• 6:56Jay Shetty?

  Everything's perfect all the time.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  We're great. We never argue.

• 6:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, we never argue. And it's like, well, no, it's important to have uncomfortable conversations. And so I find that a lot of couples struggle with having these uncomfortable conversations. We didn't get into fight styles, but we'll get there whenever you want, because that question was so good. That question was so good. And don't feel, I'm saying this as a friend now, like off camera, in the sense of like, this is so good, bro. Like, this is an interview that I haven't done with anyone because it's not about the book and we're getting into it. So it's like, don't feel any pressure to go into the, like, the stuff we're talking about is amazing. Yeah, I just reiterating as a friend. Yeah, it's so good.

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  So what were you gonna say, though? You were saying something.

• 7:31Jay Shetty?

  I was, I was just saying that this superficial idea of conscious love becomes really practiced as a deeper love. So, so, yeah, like, we don't argue, but we avoid having uncomfortable conversations. Everything's always good, but I often go to sleep at night wondering what they're thinking. Right? Like, that's not conscious because it looks good. It's conscious because you're constantly working on it. I think we're so scared of accepting that something may need fixing because that means it's broken, but it's not broken. There's just parts to relook at.

• 8:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes. What are the things that most people don't think are harmful to hurting?

• 8:17Lewis Howes?

  Loving relationships that are actually the most harm. Not like he cheated, or she's lied to me, or he's watching porn, or whatever that is. But what are actually the things that most people think that's not really that big a deal? That actually you do it year after year after year is a big deal breaker in ruining relationships. Maybe it's a little things, maybe it's the, you know, whatever it might be.

• 8:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, there's a few things I can think of.

• 8:49Jay Shetty?

  I'd say there's four coming to mind right now. The first one I'd say is the idea of control. I think we're trying to control the other person, but it doesn't look like control. It looks like care. And that's the interesting thing.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  It's like manipulative.

• 9:07Jay Shetty?

  Correct.

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  Care.

• 9:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly. So, control in a relationship can often look like care. But deep down, you're doing it because you want to control the other person.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:18Jay Shetty?

  So, you want to tell them what to wear. You want to tell them how to spend their money and how to invest it. You want to tell them how to live their life and which friends are good for them and which friends are bad for them. Now, it's different when that's a conversation from them to you and asking for your advice. But the best thing you can do as a coach, a partner, a guide, a friend, is to help someone understand what their goals are. We talk about this all the time. Like, we don't project what I think is a worthy life, or a worthy podcast, or a worthy home, onto what someone else wants because we all have different values. And so, I think we do, controlling means I don't want to understand your values and what you believe in.

• 10:01Jay Shetty?

  I'm going to project mine onto you because I think they're superior anyway.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  And I feel more comfortable if that's the case.

• 10:06Jay Shetty?

  And it's very subtle, like this is something you have to really monitor. Like, you know, I'll give an example of like, I've always been driven, or at least I've been driven for a lot of my adult life. And one thing I had to be really careful for when I met Radhi was to not project my ambition and drive onto how she lives.

• 10:26Lewis Howes?

  And hoping she does the same thing.

• 10:27Jay Shetty?

  Correct, because Radhi's this beautiful, abundant, like, sun energy.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Joyful, feminine, flowing.

• 10:34Jay Shetty?

  Flowing, and she's in flow. And that's what makes her beautiful, that's what makes her attractive. It's what makes her special to me and to everyone else who knows her. And if I try and contain that. And try and direct it towards what I think it should be. I could potentially make her lose all of that.

• 10:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:52Jay Shetty?

  And so I've seen my role with Rudi is being more protecting and helping her protect that than exploiting it. And I think it's so easy for us to think, well, I'm driven and I'm ambitious and look what I've done. And so my partner should do that too. And it's like, well, maybe they shouldn't. I remember I was speaking to a client, actually, no, this was a friend, they weren't a client. I was speaking to a friend and she was saying, oh, you know, my partner, he's lazy. He doesn't work hard. He doesn't have any ambition. And I said, well, if you want someone who has ambition, is driven and works hard, then he's not your guy. That's basically all it's saying.

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:27Jay Shetty?

  And she was saying, no, no, no, but he's really kind and loving and thoughtful. And I was like, okay, well, which one do you want? And, and if you want both, go out there and look for it, but chances are that's tough too.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Or he may not, if he's driven, he may not have as much time for you.

• 11:39Jay Shetty?

  That's what it was. And that's what she, that's exactly what she discovered. That she was like, I want someone who's driven and present. And I was like, they can be present in the moment, but they're not going to have as much time available.

• 11:48Lewis Howes?

  Or at least not during their season of being driven.

• 11:50Jay Shetty?

  Correct.

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  Maybe in 20, 30 years, it'll change, but you can't expect it to change.

• 11:55Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 11:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So that's number one, the idea of control.

• 11:57Jay Shetty?

  Yes. The second one, which again is subtle, and that's why I love your quality of your question. Because it's like, what do we miss or what do we not see is comparison.

• 12:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:07Jay Shetty?

  I think we do it without even knowing. I've heard couples literally say, oh, did you see like where they went for their anniversary trip? And there's some passive messaging in there.

• 12:18Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 12:19Jay Shetty?

  And you're passing it off like you're really happy for this person, but really there's this part of you that's saying, we didn't do that. Or I wish we did that. Or why don't you think of stuff like that? And I think passive aggression in comparison, comparison will make your partner feel un. Comparison is the number one thing you can do to make your partner feel devalued and unlovable. There is nothing like comparing your partner to another person. Now, some people will say, I'm not comparing them. I'm just saying what someone else is doing.

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but you're pointing out something that we're not doing, which makes me feel like I'm not enough.

• 12:55Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. That is, that is the bottom line.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  That's it. And you do that week after week, year after year, you're like, I'm never enough for this person. What do I need to do so they start celebrating what we're doing, not what everyone else is doing?

• 13:06Jay Shetty?

  Exactly, exactly. And I think that that comparing is, is so unhealthy.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  Yep, okay.

• 13:11Jay Shetty?

  Uh, two more.

• 13:14Jay Shetty?

  I think complaining about your partner to your family and other people, it creates a loop. So if you complain about your partner to your family, then your family is gonna check in with you. And then you complain again, and then they check in with you. Now, I'm not saying you don't talk to your family about your partner. But there's a difference in saying, hey, we're going through this, and we're going to therapy, and we're figuring this out. Versus, he's so this, she's so that, they're so that. And I find that that complaining that we do, it also seeps into what we spot in our partner. We're now looking for them to confirm our complaint. So if we just complained about our partner and said, oh, they never do this. When we go home and they haven't washed the dishes, we're like, oh yeah, see, I was right.

• 14:00Jay Shetty?

  And now we're double triggered.

• 14:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 14:02Jay Shetty?

  Rather than talking to them and communicating and saying, hey, when I come home from work and I see this, I'm triggered by X, Y, Z. Let's talk about this, the complaining.

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  Yep, and that goes back into your, your third agreement of, of love.

• 14:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 14:14Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 14:15Jay Shetty?

  And the fourth and final one that comes to mind right now is, this, this one's really tough because I, I had a friend who was going through this a lot. Whenever he was making progress in something, like, let's say he got a promotion. His partner would say to him, I don't know how they promote you, I never see you work.

• 14:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 14:35Jay Shetty?

  It was criticism.

• 14:36Lewis Howes?

  Like diminishing them.

• 14:37Jay Shetty?

  Diminishing them, so it's criticism. Yeah, it's like diminishing them about something that they've achieved or missed out on. Or someone saying, oh, I didn't get that promotion. And you say, well, yeah, I didn't really see you work for it. Right, so there's criticism either way. And I think we do this because we wanna be honest with our partners, or we want to tell them the truth, we don't wanna lie to them. Or, most of the time, it's because we're hard on ourselves.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:03Jay Shetty?

  We're criticizing ourselves for not achieving what we wanted. And now we project that criticism onto our partner for what they wanted. And criticism ends up making someone feel so far away from you. Like, criticism increases distance.

• 15:19Jay Shetty?

  In a relationship, it pushes someone so far away because you've made them feel unworthy, unwanted, and not enough.

• 15:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:27Jay Shetty?

  And again, I'm not saying the opposite is praise your partner, tell them really nice things about themselves, but there's a way to communicate about and challenges they're going through. It's not in the moment saying, hey, I didn't get the job. Oh, yeah, well, better luck next time, or, oh, it didn't quite work out. And you might say, well, people don't do this. I promise you, what I'd love for everyone to do with this, I'm gonna set a little challenge. If you're in a relationship, I want you to do an audit or a count of how many of these you do every week about your partner.

• 15:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 15:57Jay Shetty?

  So just do it honestly. Honestly, for the next seven days, if you're in a relationship, think about how often you complain, compare, criticize, or try to control, and just keep a count. Now, you may get through the week and you only do one, that's amazing, I'm really, really happy. But if you're really self-aware and you're really questioning yourself, I'd find that even I do a few of these things constantly.

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  And it's even, I think this is a beautiful audit, and probably a lot of people don't even, aren't even aware they're doing it.

• 16:27Jay Shetty?

  That's what it is.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  Such a pattern and an unconscious reaction to seeing something.

• 16:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  And even if you don't do it verbally, I would ask yourself to audit it internally.

• 16:37Jay Shetty?

  That's what I'm saying, yeah.

• 16:38Lewis Howes?

  Criticizing, am I comparing, without even saying it. Maybe I, I keep the peace and I don't say what I really think, but are you thinking it?

• 16:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you're scrolling on social media.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Am I comparing, am I complaining in my mind, I wish she would do this, I wish she would do this, but without saying it, that's still like, creating this rumination inside of you. I love that audit. We are, we are here talking about Eight Rules of Love, how to find it, how to keep it, and how to let it go. If you guys haven't got a copy yet, make sure to get ten copies right now. You mentioned this a little bit before, about conscious love.

• 17:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  Having agreements, principles, boundaries, and rules, which I think is a great thing. Most people don't have that. They just have assumptions and expectations.

• 17:15Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  That goes more into toxic love.

• 17:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  A friend of mine, Ryan Holmes, told me this years ago, when he got married, I was like, what has made this like a healthy relationship for you? He was like, you know, we created a, what did he call it, like a family vision.

• 17:30Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  We created, we actually sat down and we created like a family crest.

• 17:34Jay Shetty?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  Like a sign, a symbol of what we wanted to mold together to build our family. Something like we used to do in England like five hundred years ago.

• 17:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:44Lewis Howes?

  And he said, doing that allowed us to get clear on our principles. What we wanted to really step into, how we wanted to serve each other in our communities, our families and the world. And I thought, that's cool. Is there anything that you have around building kind of like a relationship motto, you know, crest, vision? Is there anything you talk about around that?

• 18:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I talk a lot about how there's, there's three things. You've got liking someone's personality. You've got respecting their values. And then you've got a commitment towards helping them get to their goals. Right? So that's my definition of love. My definition of love is when you like someone's personality, when you respect their values, and you're committed to helping them towards their goals. Which means you have to know what your values are and theirs. And you have to know what your goals are and theirs. And someone asked me the other day, they're about to get married and they said, Jay, what's your advice? And I said, do you know your partner's top three values?

• 18:49Jay Shetty?

  And they struggled.

• 18:51Lewis Howes?

  They're like, oh, I think so.

• 18:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and they were saying.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Friends and family.

• 18:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly. Like very, very broad things. And I was like, well, what does that mean? Like, what's the hierarchy? Like, what's the order? And then I said, well, do you know your partner's goals for the next 12 months? And they struggled again. They were like, oh, I don't know. Like, they're just settling into a new job. And I was thinking, if you don't know who your partner is and where they're going, then how are you meant to be their partner? And so to me, check-ins about these three things.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 19:21Jay Shetty?

  Regularly and consistently, give you a full vision of who your partner is and where they're headed.

• 19:27Lewis Howes?

  And that's so good. Liking their personality is what you said first, right? If you don't like someone's personality, you're gonna spend 10,000 meals with them. You better enjoy their personality.

• 19:35Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. And that's the study that shows that to make some, and me and you are great friends because of this, by this definition too, and I've really thought about this. So to make someone a casual friend, you should have spent 40 hours with them. Forty hours for a casual friend. If you consider someone a good friend, you have to spend a hundred hours with them. And if you consider someone a great friend, you should have spent two hundred hours with them. We've definitely spent more than two hundred hours together. But that's the question I would ask when you say like their personality. Can you spend two hundred present hours together? Not just two hundred hours watching TV or the movies, present hours.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, with no distractions.

• 20:13Jay Shetty?

  With no distractions.

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  You and the other person. You know, I heard this, I think it was a year ago about like you're gonna spend ten thousand meals with someone.

• 20:19Jay Shetty?

  That's nice.

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  If you're with them forever, you know. Can you sit across the table and have ten thousand meals and enjoy the meals?

• 20:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 20:25Lewis Howes?

  You know, for the most part.

• 20:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Lewis Howes?

  So I love this liking personality, respecting values. I think, you know, with Martha, I got so clear on my values and communicating it effectively.

• 20:36Jay Shetty?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:37Lewis Howes?

  And she asked me early on, I've told you this before. She asked me early on, the what are your priorities, Louis? Question. I don't know, maybe a month into dating, like what are your real priorities in life?

• 20:47Jay Shetty?

  That's so good.

• 20:48Lewis Howes?

  Right? That like every man fears answering. And I said, ooh, do I step into courage here or do I shy back to keep it comfortable? And not stir the boat? And I remember saying, well, I wanna be very honest and authentic with you, but I don't know if you're gonna like it. And I don't know if you're gonna wanna hang out in this way anymore.

• 21:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Lewis Howes?

  She was thinking that I'm gonna say something like horrible. And I was like, do you want me to be fully honest? And she looked at me and she said, yes. I said, are you sure? Because I've been honest in the past and people don't like it.

• 21:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Lewis Howes?

  Are you sure? And she said, yes. Took a deep breath, I'm like, okay, I gotta have this courage. Cause I just know that, I, I, I thought that she wouldn't like what I was about to say.

• 21:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Lewis Howes?

  And I said, okay, here are my three main values in order in life. Number one is I value my health and that needs to be like my top priority. Because if I'm sick, I can't do really anything. So I need to take care of health first and you need to support me in making sure that I use my energy to do that on a consistent basis. You can't pull me away from my health or healthy activities. Or make me feel bad for going to the gym or whatever it is. Number one. Number two, uh, priority number two is my purpose, my mission. Like in the season of life, the mission that I have right now and that's being all in, focused on that and not feeling bad about it.

• 22:13Lewis Howes?

  Not taking time away from it, um, you know, not being resentful of it, any of those things. That's priority number two. And I was like, no woman wants to hear from their man or potential man that they're not their number one or number two priority. And I said, then number three would be my relationship. You know, if we're gonna end up dating together, it would be us. Yeah. And, and I said, that doesn't mean you want to be like, I would never have time for you. Yeah, I'm not gonna choose the gym over you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I need to make sure those first two priorities are set in stone so that I can actually give to you more. So that I can be more present with you, so I can give you fully abundantly and we can do all the things you wanna do.

• 22:57Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna feel like number one, but you need to know that number one and two, I have to do these first. So good. And you will feel like the most important person in the world. Yeah. But if I don't feel healthy, if I'm being pulled away from my purpose and my mission, I'm not gonna be good for you. So good. And she looked at me, she goes, this is amazing. And she goes. I can imagine what to say there, yeah. She goes, this is amazing. I love this. And I go, really? Cause I'm thinking like, I've, I've experienced and I've heard other people experience that if you're not making your woman your number one priority. Yeah. If you don't put me first over everything, then it's like a stressful experience. Yeah. And for me, that goes back into toxic love.

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  And it's not about you aren't my top priority, it's prioritizing health and purpose and service.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  Whether you want to call it the same level or just above it.

• 23:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  So that you have the energy to be present to your relationship. At least that's for me, what I feel like a man needs to be in their relationship. They're on, they gotta be on purpose, right? And she told me, I love it because I've never been with a man who had a purpose. They always made me their purpose. And after a while, it doesn't feel good. You're like, go out and do the thing you want to do in life. Like, I don't care if you want to, you know, serve two people a day, but go do something that you're excited about, not just make it about me.

• 24:20Jay Shetty?

  Yep.

• 24:20Lewis Howes?

  And so, give me your thoughts on this, you know,

• 24:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Lewis Howes?

  this, this idea, this philosophy. If you think that's in alignment with your eight rules of love, or if you think that's, I'm crazy and I just got a lucky one who just accepts me for that.

• 24:35Jay Shetty?

  I love it. So it's really interesting you say you did that because inside my book, Eight Rules of Love, I actually talk about how I gave a client that same exercise. So I asked them to rank their top three priorities in order, and I was coaching the couple. So, the man wrote, you, the kids, me. And she wrote, me, the kids, you.

• 25:03Lewis Howes?

  This is so funny, man.

• 25:04Jay Shetty?

  He was so upset, like he was.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  No, go ahead.

• 25:06Jay Shetty?

  No, go ahead.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  This is funny because, I want to unpack this because I went to Caesar Milan, the dog whisperer, and I took my team to do like a full day leadership training, which you gotta take your team one day.

• 25:18Jay Shetty?

  So cool.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  And he watched.

• 25:19Jay Shetty?

  I'm always scared Caesar's gonna give me a dog, that's why I don't go. I know, right? I'm so scared.

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  And he, and he talks about the dynamics, at least in America, of married couples, where if you, if he asked most women, what's the priorities in the relationship? It's, it's like, mom, kids, dog, then the husband.

• 25:42Lewis Howes?

  This is what he says a lot of women say. It's like the husband is last because they get this unconditional love from the dog. But that's after the kids.

• 25:50Jay Shetty?

  Oh my gosh.

• 25:50Lewis Howes?

  And then husband. And he's like, we've got it all backwards.

• 25:54Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  We need to be, the parents need to be leading the pack.

• 25:57Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 25:58Lewis Howes?

  Together, side by side.

• 25:59Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  Right? So anyways, I don't wanna.

• 26:01Jay Shetty?

  No, no, no, I love that. That's a beautiful point.

• 26:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so, so you said, he had one thing which was her, the kids and then himself, and she had herself, the kids, and then the man.

• 26:11Jay Shetty?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 26:12Lewis Howes?

  And so what happened from that dynamic? And what happens when you enter or in a relationship like that?

• 26:18Jay Shetty?

  Well, he was distraught and he was really upset because he was just like, how can I be third on your list? And even more than that, he was actually upset that she put herself first. That's what he was more upset about. He actually wasn't that upset about being third. He was more upset about, how are you first for yourself? How is it not the kids?

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  Or the kids.

• 26:38Jay Shetty?

  How is it not the kids? And her response was similar to yours, that I want to be present, energized, and my best for you and the kids. I don't wanna give my leftovers to you and the kids. And I often say this to people, like if someone is emotionally and energetically dead, how can they keep you alive? It doesn't make any sense, like. And so what we have to understand is someone's not being selfish by focusing on themselves if they're doing it with a selfless spirit. That's the key.

• 27:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:13Jay Shetty?

  So you may meet a man who's not like Lewis and says, yeah, I'm first for me, I'm first. And they're only doing that because they think they're first. There's no, I'm gonna take care of myself so I can be better for you.

• 27:28Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:28Jay Shetty?

  That's the spirit you're looking for. So you're looking for someone who's selfish with a selfless spirit.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:35Jay Shetty?

  Not just someone who's selfish. And there's a difference.

• 27:38Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 27:39Jay Shetty?

  And it could sound like the same thing. It could even look like the same thing. You could meet someone who says, I'm dedicated to my purpose, I'm dedicated to who I am. But it's not anything to do with you. And I think that's the difference. People who prioritize self-care in order to serve, that's the self-care we want in our lives. And so that's what I'm encouraging people that you should always take care of yourself so you can take care of your partner, so you can take care of your kids. You're not just taking self-care of yourself just. Like, it has to go somewhere.

• 28:09Lewis Howes?

  And being lazy about everything else.

• 28:11Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  Speaking of priorities,

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious your thoughts on what is more triggering and harder to talk about in intimacy, which will lead to marriage? Is it around money or how to raise kids? Or are they kind of equal in their triggering?

• 28:31Jay Shetty?

  No, I'd actually say that, this is such a great question. I'd actually say that more of our trauma, because this is what's interesting, right? The honest answer is it depends on what your trauma is, but most people's trauma comes out more strongly in how to raise kids. Because now it goes back to how they were raised.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  And what they got, what they didn't get, how you're treated.

• 28:55Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. So I'd say that raising kids becomes a really tension-filled point for couples because both either think the way they were raised was great or both had bad experiences and now they're repeating them with the kids. Or a mix of both. And so I find that kids are also triggering because now you're getting to see who they love and who they respond to, who they listen to, who they like, who they connect with. Now, of course, kids don't have favorites, especially when they're young, they don't even know. But there definitely is that feeling from an insecure parent that, oh, I do this all for them and they just want to hang out with you

• 29:40Jay Shetty?

  or you get the fun side of the kids and I have to deal with the stress. And I'm not saying none of that's true. I'm just saying that I think raising kids triggers the most amount of trauma. So, and I've seen that. It's, and it's, and it's natural because you're now looking at that kid with the lens of what did I not get at that age and I want to give it to these kids? And even though that's a beautiful intention, It may not be ideal because you may overcompensate. You may struggle. And what I've realized generally is that with any of this, we're all gonna make mistakes. We're all gonna get things wrong. But I think with our kids, we wanna be perfect. And we wanna get it perfect because we love them. And we don't wanna mess something up.

• 30:22Jay Shetty?

  And often, it's that recognizing that loving them is more important than perfecting everything around them. And I feel that way with my parents. Like, I feel my mom loved me so deeply and truly that despite all the imperfection of my upbringing, her love is what lives inside of me. And that is something that no one's ever gonna forget. Whereas sometimes, you can set up the perfect environment around the kids. But if you don't fuel it with love, if you don't fill it with the oxygen of love, they're not gonna grow up with that or remember that.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Why are so many people holding on to resentment of what someone did in a relationship in their past versus allowing them to find forgiveness and peace about it? Maybe it's not agreeing that it was okay what they did, but why do people hold on to resentment for so long or anger about a past?

• 31:17Joe Dispenza?

  I think it's because people are afraid it's gonna happen to them again.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 31:21Joe Dispenza?

  And when we have a traumatic event, big or small, in fact, you're always on the lookout for the, any signal in the environment, any person or circumstance that's gonna be the smallest cue that's gonna say, ooh, I've done this before. I better get ready for it. So we're in a constant state of bad news, waiting for the worst-case scenario. So let me just finish this, okay?

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Joe Dispenza?

  Because the question really was about self-love.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 31:44Joe Dispenza?

  The person who lives in resentment is making themselves unhappy.

• 31:48Joe Dispenza?

  A person who's judging everybody else because they're judging themselves is making themselves unhappy. A person who's complaining, blaming, making excuses, feel sorry for themselves, they're making themselves unhappy. There's nobody doing that to them. You say, it's your ex? Okay, let's take your ex. Let's put him in a straitjacket. Let's shoot him to the moon. Now what? No, no way.

• 32:07Lewis Howes?

  You're still holding on to it, yeah.

• 32:08Joe Dispenza?

  You're still thinking that way and feeling that way. And that person is no longer in your life. You're defined by that, that, that story, by that past event, okay?

• 32:19Joe Dispenza?

  The person's truly sincere and thinks there's something other than that emotion of resentment. What's on the other side of it? Am I willing to sit through it long enough? And no matter how much the pain is or what my body does, I'm gonna sit this one out. I'm gonna work with my body and keep bringing it back into the present moment. It's like training an animal. You keep doing it over and over again. You stay, you stay, you stay. I'm not getting up, I'm not eating, I'm not moving. We're gonna keep lowering the volume. You keep reconditioning the body to a new mind sooner or later it surrenders. It surrenders to a new mind. When that occurs, there's that liberation of energy and energy moves into the heart. And you feel love for yourself. You feel a respect for yourself. You feel an honor for yourself. Something, you took your power back, you know? You built your field. Something feels right.

• 33:03Joe Dispenza?

  When we look at the data of people who do this, and we see their scans, their brain scans, we see their HRV measurements and they get good at this. We measure their oxytocin levels. Now oxytocin is the love chemical, right? It's made in the pituitary gland.

• 33:23Joe Dispenza?

  It is the, is love chemical, causes us to bond, to connect, to unify. And, and when I showed the values of oxytocin levels with these people to scientists, they're sometimes 200 times above normal. Now, that's not a little love. That's a lot of love.

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  It's an explosion of love.

• 33:42Joe Dispenza?

  It's a lot of love. And so oxytocin signals nitric oxide. And nitric oxide signals another chemical called endothelial derived relaxing factor. And that chemical causes the arteries in your heart and your lungs to literally open up. And blood flows into your heart and your heart is filled with energy. Just like when it engorges the sexual organs. There's an engorgement of blood in there and it activates it with energy. And there's a mind that's created. It's a consciousness.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:13Joe Dispenza?

  Now, this one opens up, it's a whole different consciousness. In fact, the research on oxytocin shows that the slightest elevation in oxytocin, it's impossible to hold a grudge. It's impossible. You say, dude, I feel so good. I'm good, like, no, no, no, I'm good. I'm really good. Now...

• 34:34Joe Dispenza?

  That kind of state means I don't want to feel anything else but this. So I am not going to compromise myself or my energy to a lower denominator just because of you. In fact, I'm really good around you. I'm really okay. I feel so good. I don't want to judge you because I don't want to lose this feeling. So then imagine being around a cat like that. Being around a person like that, that's really easy to be around because they're okay with themselves. And when they're okay with themselves, they relate with people differently. In fact, they relate with them unconditionally. They just love them unconditionally and that causes an attraction, it causes a bond, right? So, one of the things I learned last year in watching people, you know, in this work and week-long events,

• 35:18Joe Dispenza?

  I do my best to pay really close attention. Looked at an audience one day and I looked out in the room, just we just finished a walking meditation. Everybody sat down and I kind of glanced around the room and everybody had this radiant smile. And I said to them, "Hey, who's making you happy, by the way?" Who? "Who's making you happy?" "There's nobody doing that to you." "You're doing that to you." "You're making yourself..." I mean, you're not relying on your, anybody in your life to do that. Now, that is an attractive energy. That's the person who relates well with money. There's a relationship with money. They relate well with people. They're very giving, they're very caring. They want nothing in return. They're more present.

• 36:03Joe Dispenza?

  Because that's who they're practicing being. And so there's a natural affinity, a natural attraction. Because the person is really present and they're really okay. And something is different about them. Something is unique about them. So, the relationship we have with people when we're in that state where we're really okay with ourselves, or we've made ourselves happy, we're really happy with ourselves, allows us to love just about, we'll find beauty through the lens of love in anything. And no one else sees it, right? Getting there is the overcoming process. That is what creates self-love.

• 36:43Joe Dispenza?

  Now, to be very clear, I think many people, I think I'll include myself, we confuse pleasure...

• 36:53Joe Dispenza?

  With love and it's not the same thing.

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  What's the difference?

• 36:56Joe Dispenza?

  Well, pleasure is doing something that makes you feel good and but has nothing to do with love. Love has everything to do with something that you feel independent of pleasure. It's a some it's it's the when you overcome yourself and you arrive at your goal. You reach your dream, you never give up on yourself. You had hard moments, you fell to your knees, you brushed yourself up, you got up. You showed up again for yourself. It's amazing to watch this. I watch it a week long events. I watch people literally change in seven days and they showed up. When they said, I'm too tired, I have a handicap, I have a disease. I don't understand how rough my past is. I'm an addict.

• 37:38Joe Dispenza?

  I, you know, I was in jail. I my mother was abusive, you know, all they showed up. In spite of I'm too old, I have whatever that is. They you keep showing up for yourself, you start feeling really worthy. Really worthy to receive and the universe only gives us what we think we're worthy of receiving. Right? So so in when you're in love, you're in a whole lot less lack. And if you're in a whole lot less lack.

• 38:06Joe Dispenza?

  In a sense, you're moving closer to source and that's a really good feeling. That's a really good feeling. So practice that every day. Practice that every day and your relationships with people. Your relationship with your body, your relationship with money, your relationship with your phone, your relationship with your car. Your relationship with everything would be different.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:33Joe Dispenza?

  And so so the overcoming process is the becoming process. You make yourself happy. You no longer need anybody to do that for you. You have a person in your life who is conscious that wants to make themselves happy. And share their joy and their love with somebody.

• 38:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:54Joe Dispenza?

  Well, you have something really unique. It's it's really special. It's really it's and and. Love is a bonding, a very bonding chemical. It's a very bonding energy. Right? Like if you look at oxytocin levels in mammals.

• 39:10Joe Dispenza?

  You typically see it when the female has just given birth and she's grooming the offspring and she's touching it and licking it and nudging it and taking care of it. There's oxytocin levels are released through the limbic brain, through the midbrain. It's the bonding brain. They're smelling, they're connecting, and they're attracting one another. It's creating a connection. A honeymoon stage of relationship where there's a lot of intense connection, a lot of intimacy, releases oxytocin, creates monogamy, creates a bond, it creates unity, creates connection. So we show the values to our, some of the scientists and my colleagues and they see oxytocin levels 200 times normal. They're like, dude, what are you doing? The food is going up. This is couples week. What is going on here?

• 39:54Joe Dispenza?

  And I say, you know, I say the same thing. I say, number one, I want people to fall in love with their future, just like they fall in love with another person, because then if they do, they're bonded to that future, just like they're bonded to another person. Secondly, if you truly, truly want to connect to pure love, to source, to singularity, to oneness, to wholeness, to the fertile void, to vacuum energy, whatever you want to call that, universal intelligence, that's pure consciousness, that's pure love. If you hit, you hit that moment where you hit connection, you will feel that arousal of love. It'll be, it'll be profoundly memorable for you. And it's, it's not chemical, it's electric. It's very electric. Wow.

• 40:34Joe Dispenza?

  So you get a few of those, it becomes you, and you become it. And so your love for the divine, your love for the mystical, your love for the unseen, your love for source. The love affair begins. And it's like being in love. It's, no one can tell you you're in love. You just know it. And it gets really hard to miss a date. Imagine you go and, you go and connect every day, and you start your day from that place.

• 41:03Joe Dispenza?

  That's a relationship. That's a relationship with the world that you're bringing. So I think the overcoming process is part of it. I think it's practicing, getting to that place. I think it's practicing, opening our hearts more, moving out of survival, working with our bodies. In survival, it's not a time to love. It's not a time to communicate. So in a relationship that's built on emotions other than love, there's going to be a limit to love. Right? And so you got betrayed, someone else got betrayed, you get together, talk about your betrayal, work yourself up into a froth, feel the emotions, get emotional agreement, get a connection. You're connecting the same energy, the same emotion, because you're sharing the same information.

• 41:47Joe Dispenza?

  You're sharing the same memories and you can relate with one another. That's a certain level of consciousness.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  For all the people that you've seen have successful, long-term relationships, what is the thing that you see them do extremely well versus?

• 42:00Joe Dispenza?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:01Lewis Howes?

  They forgive each other, they forgive.

• 42:03Joe Dispenza?

  They forgive the emotion. No, the emotion's going to keep you in the past, right? So they have to be able to forgive.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  What happens if we don't forgive something that our partner or inner relationship does? If it hurts us or they said something and they did something, maybe it was really bad or just?

• 42:20Joe Dispenza?

  If you can't forgive, you'll never have love. The love that we withhold is the pain that we experience lifetime after lifetime. You know, that's how it is.

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  The love, say it again, the love?

• 42:32Joe Dispenza?

  That we withhold is the pain that we experience lifetime after lifetime. And then when we master our emotions, we master our creations. So that's a creation. And you have to overcome the memory and the emotion. And when you do, you belong to the future instead of the past.

• 42:49Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 42:49Joe Dispenza?

  So otherwise, well, that's a perfect explanation of karma. You live by that emotion, that emotion's going to drive a certain behavior. It'll cause you to think a certain way and you're on the wheel. You're gonna, people are living the same lifetime every day. They're on cycles. They're living the same lifetime after lifetime because they have to overcome the emotion. No one's, no one's doing that to them.

• 43:15Joe Dispenza?

  Soul can't go to the future, can't go. Can't go if it's stuck in the emotion of the past. So the soul has to overcome the event by overcoming the emotion. Forget what happened. And you'll never hear me say to anybody, tell me your story. I will never say that. I would never do that to you. Wow. I would say, overcome the emotion. And then the story ends. Wow. Because the memory without that emotional charge is the wisdom we get from the experience. We never have to do it again. And now the soul says, okay, I'm ready for the next adventure. Okay, so I was betrayed. Okay, I learned the lesson. I did this, I did that. Okay, I got it. But we discovered that when people analyze their life within some disturbing emotion, they make their brain worse 100% of the time.

• 44:01Joe Dispenza?

  Holy cow. Because you're thinking in the past, the answer is not there. Overcome the emotion. Actually, the thinking about it makes the brain worse. It drives them into higher states of arousal. Overcome the emotion, you have the answer to your own question. It's because it's not in the known. It's not in the past. You gotta get beyond it. So I say to people, when they ask me questions, just, just seven days, just cross the river. You're gonna have the answers to your own questions. There's gonna be no better life coach for you than you. Right, right. So then the person who shows up worthy in their life, person who's happy because they're making themselves happy, that's such an unknown for everybody that, that they've just left and showed back up in their life, or they usually complain with. They're like, oh my God, this person's joined a cult.

• 44:45Joe Dispenza?

  Oh my God, this person seems way too happy and they're happy without me, you know? And, and really, it's just an energy that's, that the person has broken out of the chains. They freed themselves from the chains of the past, right? And so that doesn't mean that they don't get frustrated, don't get angry. They just don't waste their time staying there because living by that emotion will create a gap between the way things appear and the way things really are. Wow. And if we respond during that period, we'll always say the same thing. Should've never said that. I should've never done, I should've never sent that email or that text. You're altered in some way. So, learning to shorten the refractory period of your emotional responses is emotional intelligence, right? And, and getting really good at that then allows a person to show up differently.

• 45:27Joe Dispenza?

  And when people, when people create the life they want, which happens a lot. Why would they, why would they hold a grudge?

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:36Joe Dispenza?

  Why, why would they do that? They trust, they're, they free themselves and they free that person. Like, like, everybody's been betrayed, everybody's been hurt. But if your life is wonderful, who cares? Like, that whoa, I just, I, I mean, I wasn't conscious or whatever. And then I, now it's, it was when your life isn't working. And it ain't working and you're living by the same emotion and that passes, you're gonna keep it alive. But you're the only one keeping it alive. Where did, where is it? Where is your past? Where is it? It's, it's only there, right?

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  It's in a memory.

• 46:08Joe Dispenza?

  It's a memory.

• 46:08Lewis Howes?

  It's not here.

• 46:09Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah, it's not here. So then people spend enormous amounts of time not even knowing, not even aware that they're living in that state and always predicting, the default mode network in the brain is always predicting the next moment, based on what it's learned in the past, right?

• 46:30Lewis Howes?

  And if you're holding a grudge of the past, it's gonna predict that in the future.

• 46:33Joe Dispenza?

  You're, you're just gonna get ready for the next one.

• 46:35Lewis Howes?

  It's hap, you're recreating the past.

• 46:37Joe Dispenza?

  Your, your, your, your future is your past.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 46:41Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah. And, and, and there's, and that's all the known, right? So getting a person to no longer live in the predictable future, you know, where they're just habituated, where they get up and do things and they're on a program. Getting a person, that's the predictable future is the known. Familiar past is the known. Living by the emotion, remembering the event. If the, if the familiar past is the known and the predictable future is the known, there's only one place where the unknown can be.

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Joe Dispenza?

  And that's the present moment. Getting a person to labor for the present moment liberates energy in the body.

• 47:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:14Joe Dispenza?

  And that's when the person starts feeling more like themselves. And they don't feel as altered. And so you overcome the emotion of resentment, just use this as an example, by sitting in the fire for a week and just facing off with it and just working with your body and retraining it to a new mind. I guarantee you that when you see your ex, you'll, you'll see a part of you you used to be that you no longer are and you'll have nothing but compassion and love for her. And you'll be like, wow, wow, I get it. I totally get it. There's no longer the past anymore. You're not connected to it any longer. And you free that person and your relationship changes and something shifts. And there's, she's, he's, she's seeing you differently because you're showing up differently. And it's not, it's not anything you're saying, you're not lecturing them. They're just not showing up as the memory.

• 47:59Joe Dispenza?

  They had of you, and that allows them to be different. And that's, that's a great service.

• 48:06Lewis Howes?

  Yes. You mentioned about survival mode. When we're in survival mode, we're feeling stressed. And when we're feeling stressed, we're unable to feel that kind of self-love, love for self.

• 48:17Joe Dispenza?

  Well, when you're in stress, you're altered.

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  You're altered.

• 48:19Joe Dispenza?

  You're altered. You're not, you're, you're, you're altered self.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  You're shaken. You're not feeling whole.

• 48:24Joe Dispenza?

  You've moved from love.

• 48:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 48:25Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Lewis Howes?

  And when we enter a relationship from survival or stress, or lack of worthiness, or neediness, I need someone to make me feel more love because I don't have it myself.

• 48:41Lewis Howes?

  What do we usually attract and create when we're attracting from neediness, survival, and a lack of wholeness?

• 48:50Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah, I think that all of that lack, all of that separation is separation from love. Right? And the problem is, is that we've just been conditioned into thinking that it comes from out there. It comes from that person, that drug, that circumstance, that, that thing, that object, the app, whatever it is. And you're, you're relying on your outer world to change your inner world. And so when things are good, you feel good. When things feel bad, you feel bad. So you're, you're out of fact. You're not a cause in any way. So what if, though, you had a way to find that independent of your outer world? The data we have suggests it's absolutely possible. Now you're free.

• 49:33Joe Dispenza?

  You're free. Like, you don't need anybody or anything. You'd be a lot cooler to hang around with. Everybody'd be like, well, you know, that's just, that, that would allow them, I, I, I know this.

• 49:44Joe Dispenza?

  Your presence would allow them to move out of survival. And they would open their heart a little bit more. They'd trust you a little bit more. They'd be more kind. They'd be more soft-spoken, more, uh, less egocentric. Your, your presence would do that and, and may not be the first time, but they would start figuring out like, wow, this guy is... Really different, you know, he's something's different about him and and that's just because you're present and and you're giving them your attention without judgment. You you see how hard it is to change. You've actually made that change because you've made that change and you see that you've made that change, but you see that in them. You're no longer judging them. You have compassion for them like dude, that's a tough one. It's tough. It took me a long time to get over that, but you're not judging them. Like what's wrong with you?

• 50:28Joe Dispenza?

  You're you're like, oh, my God, I totally know what that's like. You you've crossed that river. So of course you would never offer them advice unless they asked you. You would probably give them a one liner. I mean, people who heal in our work so many times. You know, people in in a state of desperation will say, what meditation did you do? And they laugh at them like, it's nothing to do with the meditation. It was just I changed like and it was it was it was an arduous process. Yeah. They're telling a different story, telling the story of their future. They're not telling the story of their past, their ex or their betrayer or whatever that person is. They have no regrets about that because why? They wish them well. It's not even it's not like they're even trying to forgive to be spiritual.

• 51:13Joe Dispenza?

  You know, people who try to forgive, like, I'm really gonna try to forgive that. Working hard to forgive. Yeah, it's just not how that works. Like you were in love, like you don't have to try to forgive. You're just you just don't want to lose this feeling and you take your attention off that person. You're good. You there's a lot of freedom in that and that's how people heal. They're they're building their own field. They're they're they're giving their body their energy back again. They're taking their power back in so many ways. So. And then there is then there is community, a collective consciousness. Like I I I. I like great conversation. I like spirited conversation. I like to be scientists or people in my life that I love. I like to engage in just what the limit is and like everybody take us on a journey to

• 51:58Joe Dispenza?

  see how far we can go. I don't like to talk about like things that really that are that where there's pain or suffering or what I don't I don't. Where there's ego, I don't really like that. Like, that's a consciousness. And, and everybody's done it. But i- i- if you're truly on the path of evolution, you outgrow it. Yes. You outgrow complaining, like, you just, you just don't, you don't want to make yourself unhappy anymore. You outgrow, outgrow talking about yourself like you're better than anybody else. Because if you do, you gotta face off with that person tomorrow and overcome them tomorrow. After a while, you're like, dude, just stop that so you don't have to deal with you like that anymore. So you just start, you start outgrowing things that are just a side effect of your evolution. It's not like you have to try to do it.

• 52:41Joe Dispenza?

  It's just the side effect of a change in consciousness, a change in energy, a change in awareness, change in emotional states. Yes. And so, in the heart, it is the selfless place. It's a selfless place. We can give from the heart. We care from the heart. We're kind in our heart. We're compassionate in our heart. We're inspired in our heart. You know, we fall in love with our heart. We're grateful in our heart. And so, I think people feel with every other part of their body but their heart. Like, they just don't feel with it, right? Practice feeling with your heart. Yes. And, um, God, we have, we have such great data. You know, we put these monitors on people for 24 hours, right? And I used to think primarily it was women that had these moments. Now, we're seeing that men have them too.

• 53:25Joe Dispenza?

  In fact, the men whose spouses take them or partners take them to an event and they really don't want to come, those guys are gonna be fine. They have really, really big moments. So, so we see them in their meditation where you can, these little blocks of five minutes and you see the heart just dropping the coherence. And it's just beautiful lines, beautiful looks. You can see this, it's very easy to see. You see this person sustaining it for 45 minutes during their meditation. So, you're like, hmm, all right, this person nailed it. You go to the next meditation, another 45 minutes again. Hmm, done it once, done it twice. This is, looks like this person's getting a skill. All of a sudden, they do it a third time, another 45 minutes, and then, lo and behold, those three meditations in one day, then they're, they're in their room.

• 54:10Joe Dispenza?

  You know, getting unpacking and getting ready for bed, they're still wearing their heart rate monitor. And while they're not in a meditation, for one hour, while they're just unpacking, getting ready, there's an enormous amount of heart coherence is taking place for a whole hour. Why? Because, just like a person who has a panic attack, who's embracing the worst-case scenario in their mind every day and emotionally feeling the anxiety and the fear of that event actually occurred, that image of that emotion, that stimulus and response, that thought and feeling is conditioning the body to become the mind of anxiety. The body has a panic attack with you or without you. Try as you may to control it with your conscious mind. You can't control it. You're programmed subconsciously, right? So is it possible

• 54:54Joe Dispenza?

  to have a spontaneous love attack? That's what she had. She had one hour or her body went into ecstasy. Wow. And you could see it. I said- A love attack? A love attack. Wow. She, I said to her, "What did you do?" She said, and I saw it. She, she laid, she got in bed and she laid down and rolled over and went to sleep. So you see her, about an hour and 10 minutes, perfect heart coherence and just see it drop off into sleep. 13, 1400 different chemicals released to restore and repair the body. So, the love that you feel is, is the glue that creates connection on a cellular level, on a molecular level, on an atomic level. Peel the atom all the way back, right to the center of the nucleus and

• 55:35Joe Dispenza?

  you have nothing but energy. And that energy is what's called low entropy. And low entropy is high order. And high order is high energy. And it's a lot of, lot of power. So as you move closer to, to that source of everything physical and material, we have such great data to show that people actually run into it. And when they do, their autonomic nervous system goes into these elevated states of high, high, high gamma brainwave patterns. Now, gamma is super consciousness. Gamma is very conscious, very aware. So the person's whole entire autonomic nervous system is processing hundreds of standard deviations

• 56:20Joe Dispenza?

  of gamma outside of normal. That's not a little gamma. And it's so coherent. Now, the autonomic nervous system- Touches every single cell in the body, controls and coordinates all those systems, right? So now imagine stress is autonomic dysregulation, incoherence. This is autonomic regulation, but this is not a little regulation. This is enormous amount of energy that's taking place in the brain. And the autonomic nervous system is on fire and every single cell in the body is getting touched by that frequency. And that frequency is carrying information and energy is informing matter. And that connection creates that feeling of pure love, of ecstasy or bliss. And now the person takes a piece of it with them, they become more of it and it becomes

• 57:05Joe Dispenza?

  them. And so we measure their blood and there's a lot of oxytocin. We measure their blood and there's information in that blood that wasn't there before that heals cancer, that reverses Alzheimer's, that causes viruses to not enter the cell. I mean, it causes the microbiome to change in a matter of days. Like so that that interaction with that unifying field of energy that exists beyond our senses, whose signature is oneness, whose signature is wholeness, whose signature is pure love. Means then that it lives within you and all around you, then you'd be remembering who you are and where you came from, which is pure love. And it is the most familiar unfamiliar feeling you'll ever have. And it's not chemical. Wrong.

• 57:47Joe Dispenza?

  It's electric. And when you have that moment, many times, there's an upgrade that takes place in the body. There's a disease, now it's gone. There's the enzima, it's gone. There's a myasthenia gravis, now it's gone. There's the Parkinson's, now it's gone. There's the blindness, now it's gone. There's a energies informing matter and that enormous amount of regulation, high, high amounts of regulation is raising the body in frequency, it's raising the body in light and all diseases lowering in frequency. So the person is connecting to something way bigger than their senses, way something beyond their senses and it's coming from within them. Now, and you only need one of those and you're, you're okay

• 58:28Joe Dispenza?

  from that point forward and the way you see life. You have some veil, some illusion, some conditioning, some hypnosis is removed and you're now way more relaxed in your heart.

• 58:42Joe Dispenza?

  And way more awake in your brain instead of unconscious, stressed out in a program, right?

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  And when I think you're more awake in your, your heart and your brain, you start to attract more great opportunities and you start to see, is this person in alignment with my type of?

• 58:58Joe Dispenza?

  Resonating, resonating in that consciousness.

• 59:01Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 59:01Joe Dispenza?

  You'll be able to find your tribe. It'll be as obvious as anything.

• 59:05Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Whether you're looking for a partner or friends or community or a place to work.

• 59:09Joe Dispenza?

  Business partner that you can trust.

• 59:10Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 59:10Joe Dispenza?

  That you resonate and you feel that and, and, and the heart is a strong element in the creative process. So if you have a coherent brain, then you're sending the signal out into the quantum field. That's the, that's the potential in the quantum field that you're selecting that already exists. And you gotta have an intention. The more coherent the brain, the more the electrical signal takes place in the field. But if you want to create the experience, the synchronicity, the opportunity, you gotta need a coherent heart. And the heart is the magnetic field and the magnetic field draws things to us. So now we don't have to go get it any longer because that's what we do in three dimensional reality. All of a sudden you start noticing, I really didn't do anything. Well, I got the email.

• 59:52Joe Dispenza?

  I got the phone call. I got the opportunities. I met this person, led to this and wow, and all of a sudden I have this life. And, and so if you're going to believe in that future that you're imagining with all of your heart, it's gotta be open and activated. We train people to get in that place. And when they're in that place, they have wonderful relationships with everything and everybody because they're okay with themselves.

• 1:00:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:00:21Lewis Howes?

  What is the main thing you would recommend people work on themselves? Whether in transition of relationships or in a relationship? Is there one thing that they could always be working on to improve themselves? To be better for other relationships?

• 1:00:35Esther Perel?

  If their entire story about the relationship that just ended is about what the other person did wrong to them.

• 1:00:45Esther Perel?

  Something is missing in the story.

• 1:00:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Esther Perel?

  That doesn't mean that the other person may not have done things that were hurtful to them. But add to it, who were you in this relationship?

• 1:00:56Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:56Esther Perel?

  What role did you play? What did you see that you didn't want to pay attention to?

• 1:01:03Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:05Esther Perel?

  What things do you wish you had done differently? What pieces do you wish that your partner had seen and accepted from you differently?

• 1:01:14Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:15Esther Perel?

  Where did you wish you would have said less? And where did you wish you would have said more? What do you learn from this relationship? And if when you say what you learn, it's just that I want to make sure that the next person is...

• 1:01:29Lewis Howes?

  Right, gives me what I need.

• 1:01:31Esther Perel?

  You know, or is less of this or more of that, you know? Who do you want to be in the next relationship?

• 1:01:38Lewis Howes?

  How are you gonna add value?

• 1:01:39Esther Perel?

  A relationship is a story of many people. It's not even a story just of two. Who was too involved in your relationship? Who was not involved enough? So, it's, there's a cast of characters in a relationship. And it's all those questions that you want to ask when you are in transition. What, what, I think that's it. I mean, you can, but there are both directions. If you find yourself with a spotlight only on the other person and you in a passive receptive

• 1:02:14Esther Perel?

  stance, you're missing a whole pan of the story.

• 1:02:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you're probably more of the problem than, of the relationship than them. If you're just focusing on them, probably.

• 1:02:24Esther Perel?

  A relationship is not about this person and that person. The relationship is what happens in between. This is my view on relationships. It's not an essentialist view, this is this personality and that personality. It's the dynamic.

• 1:02:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:40Esther Perel?

  You can have a dynamic with a certain partner. You've had dynamics with certain partners. And of course, it was just the right fit between the match and the ignition. And so you had enough inside of you to react with a certain kind of, let's put your jealousy. But you may meet another person who acts differently. And you may still have a little bit of that jealousy inside of you, but it doesn't get activated. Because this person is responding very differently to you. And when you say, "Where were you?" They don't say, "Why do you always have to ask me that question?" They just say, "I just went to do this. It's all good, darling. I'm right here. I've got you back." And then you don't go into your chest pain, you know, pain.

• 1:03:25Esther Perel?

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

• 1:04:09Esther Perel?

  Did I push them away? Are there ways in which I contributed sometimes to the disconnection? And that is not self-blame. That is understanding the dynamic. You can take responsibility about things without blaming yourself. And you can hold the other person accountable without blaming them. It's not a blame dance. But it is an understanding of, "What did I do that made you do what you then did to me that then made me?" That's the relationship.

• 1:04:38Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:05:16Esther Perel?

  But you asked me, it's different questions, right? What keeps a relationship alive is one question. How much do you invest in a relationship is a different question. So, I'm gonna go to the one about what keeps it alive. Because it's part of, and I'm suddenly watching the box and thinking, this, it is what I'm mostly interested in. Because I work on eroticism. What keeps us alive? What keeps us hopeful? What keeps us engaged with possibility?

• 1:05:53Lewis Howes?

  Not physically alive, but connected alive.

• 1:05:56Esther Perel?

  Connected to life, life force, life energy. Why? Because, because I think everybody understands relationships that are not dead versus relationships that are alive. Teams that are not dead, companies versus companies that are alive. What is flourishing versus surviving? And because it is part of my personal history, and I come from a background of survivors, of parents who were in concentration camps, and I wanted to understand how do people stay alive when they spend five years in a concentration camp? So that's why I've got interested in eroticism. Sexuality is a piece of this, but sexuality is not eroticism.

• 1:06:39Esther Perel?

  You can have sex every day and feel nothing. Eroticism is the poetry that accompanies it. It's the meaning we give to it. Right? It's the story that's attached. So eroticism in a relationship is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk-taking, novelty, that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship. So in the research of Eli Finkel, it means doing new things together. Taking risks beyond your threshold, out of your comfort zone.

• 1:07:19Esther Perel?

  Because if you do pleasant things that are familiar, it's cozy, it's friendship, it's love, but it's not exciting, it's not erotic, it's not necessarily desire. It's calibrating your expectations.

• 1:07:35Esther Perel?

  So that you have, and that means diversifying your intimate connections or your deep connections. Doesn't it, you know, for me intimacy doesn't mean sexual either. It just means people that are important to you, that accompany you through the life stages and through the big events in life. These treatings, expectations, calibrating expectations, diversifying your social connections and taking risks and doing new things is the research of Ilai Finkel for driving relationships. But then in that piece, I think play is essential.

• 1:08:07Lewis Howes?

  It's huge, right?

• 1:08:08Esther Perel?

  Playfulness, it's huge. And it is actually the quality of emotions that is the least talked about.

• 1:08:16Lewis Howes?

  How often are you playing in your relationship?

• 1:08:19Esther Perel?

  All the time, all the time. We have, humor is essential. It's an essential salve and balm in my relationship. I can be in the middle of an argument and then I start to laugh and then I just get perspective and we just kind of ground ourselves back again. It's flirting, it's teasing, it's making fun of, it's, it's that whole realm of we're not really serious and we don't take ourselves that serious.

• 1:08:48Lewis Howes?

  And what happens when relationships are taking themselves very serious and they're not playing?

• 1:08:52Esther Perel?

  Look, I had a teacher who once said to me, if a couple comes to you for therapy and there is absolutely zero humor left, it is diagnostic.

• 1:09:04Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:09:06Esther Perel?

  Now, is it true, you know, nobody has proven that scientifically, but what you know is that humor. And if you listen to my podcast, if you listen to the sessions on where should we begin, or on how his work, you'll see in the middle of talking about trauma, painful event, major fight, strife, I laugh with them. I manage to see if they can see themselves, if they have a bit of distance, of perspective, if they understand sometimes the absurdity of the things that we get into, the things over which we fight, the way we do it. And even if it's just a glimmer, a smile on the side, on the corner, I know they know

• 1:09:46Esther Perel?

  that I know that we know, and it creates that complicity, and it invites a new possibility.

• 1:09:54Lewis Howes?

  Some people may be resisting the humor, they're like, they want to hold on to the seriousness.

• 1:09:59Esther Perel?

  Yes, if you want to hold on to righteousness, to I am right, to victimization, to I have the view that is the only view that matters, and only my perception and my experience is the truth, then you are in a polarized system that is rigid and unyielding. Humor and play is possibility. Possibility invites change. Change invites healing.

• 1:10:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I want to ask you a few more questions, then I want us to play your game for a little bit. Over the last two years, was there anything that came up for you personally, in your own inner world, that you noticed, oh, there's something, like we talked about, it created a lot of pressure for people if there were things that came out. Was there anything for you that you were like, huh, there's something I still need to work on myself, or need to continue the healing journey of, that came out in the last couple of years, with being at home and, you know, not doing things the way they used to be?

• 1:11:01Esther Perel?

  I will answer this in two ways. The way that I experienced the pandemic. So in the first, in the beginning, right after I left you, I went back to New York and I went in lockdown. And basically, it was in the, you know, suddenly kind of, I got gripped with a bit of a panic. And primarily because I thought, I can't catch this thing. Because if I catch it, I am now suddenly considered elderly. I'm past sixty.

• 1:11:33Lewis Howes?

  But you're thirty-five.

• 1:11:34Esther Perel?

  Yeah, yeah. For the pandemic, it changed. It suddenly shifted overnight. I became elderly. And that meant I wasn't sure if we entered the hospital, me or Jack, that we will pass the triage.

• 1:11:46Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:11:47Esther Perel?

  And he's older than me. And I got really, really scared. I had a lot of post-traumatic stress symptoms that are very much connected to the Holocaust and to my family experience. That sense that overnight, this whole life I have built could just disappear like this. And it was irrational. I was terrified that Jack would die, to the point, you wanted to know about humor in my relationship. So we are in the middle of construction at the time, and there are workers. And at that point, he comes to me and he says, I asked the workers to create, to dig a hole in the garden. I said, oh, yeah? Why? He said, so that when I die, you can just roll me right in.

• 1:12:30Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my God. Wow, talk about humor.

• 1:12:33Esther Perel?

  And I, but I cracked up because he showed me, girl, you're gripped in fear. And I just started to laugh and I just realized, no, no, no, he's not dead. Because I was ready to stop construction. I said, we're not making this.

• 1:12:47Lewis Howes?

  No one can come here within a thousand yards of us.

• 1:12:48Esther Perel?

  No, no. It's more like we will not survive.

• 1:12:51Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 1:12:52Esther Perel?

  I was, I really, when it's post-traumatic, it's trauma is the word, right? So I really was very, very, very scared. And his humor diffused it for me and just brought me back and said, we're continuing to build. We're gonna live. We're gonna survive. Don't worry, girl. It's like... So this was one and it slowly, you know, I entered into the, into the long term of the pandemic and it dissolved. And that's when I understood this came out of that. I missed my friends, I missed my dinner parties, I missed intimacy. And I created a host of different group experiences, pods.

• 1:13:34Esther Perel?

  I had a movie club on Zoom on three continents.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:13:38Esther Perel?

  I had a book club. I had a yoga group that met four times a week still till now, that is over two continents.

• 1:13:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 1:13:47Esther Perel?

  And I had a hiking group, I had a swimming group in the summer. And then one day I said, I need to play. And I need to continue to have conversations where I learn something new. I was so freaking tired of talking about the pandemic all the time.

• 1:14:00Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:14:01Esther Perel?

  And I said, I'm gonna create a game, not having any idea of what this thing was going to become and what it represented. I just thought, oh, I want to do something creative and I'm gonna, I want people to be able to talk about something that isn't just like, you know, when you live six months like this in lockdown, you begin to have the same conversations.

• 1:14:19Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah, yeah, of course.

• 1:14:20Esther Perel?

  So I just thought, how am I going to make couples have fun? Get energized, you know, be curious about each other, talk about something else. And I thought, we need to play because play is a container. Play gives you the possibility to take risks, to talk about things that you would otherwise not talk about because it's under the guise of play. Play allows you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask, certainly not to your partner. Because we get more shy with the people that we live with than with strangers sometimes.

• 1:14:51Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 1:14:52Esther Perel?

  You know, you're more daring to ask sometimes questions to strangers.

• 1:14:56Lewis Howes?

  That you're never gonna see again.

• 1:14:57Esther Perel?

  Or people you've just met than the person you live with for decades on end.

• 1:15:02Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 1:15:03Esther Perel?

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

• 1:15:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:15:34Esther Perel?

  Underrated. And from that place, Kim.

• 1:15:39Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 1:15:39Esther Perel?

  Where should we begin?

• 1:15:40Lewis Howes?

  It's one of the key things in a relationship and in life is what I'm hearing you say.

• 1:15:44Esther Perel?

  It's ascension.

• 1:15:48Lewis Howes?

  I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneymeasbook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness.

• 1:16:29Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:17:13Lewis Howes?

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