A Toolkit for Love: How To Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go

(00:22:10):

It's almost like when you make a decision to say, I'm thinking about buying this brand of car, or I'm thinking about buying this brand of whatever it may be. Now you see that brand everywhere. You hear it everywhere. It's not that suddenly everyone just started buying that car on the streets or buying that product or brand, but you see it everywhere because it's at the forefront of your consciousness. And so if the story is I'm not good enough, I'm not ready, and I'm unlovable, which is a very true and real story of the people that are writing in for us, that unfortunately is what you're going to perpetuate. 

Mel Robbins (00:24:19):

Well, this is going to sound like a dumb question, but I have to ask

 

Jay Shetty (00:24:22):

It. Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:24:22):

How the hell do you figure out what you like? No, I'm serious. It's a question if you've always been somebody. So let's role play.

 

Jay Shetty (00:24:30):

No, no, no, let's do it. You're my life coach. Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:24:32):

Okay. My parents are divorced. I have had terrible relationships through high school and college. Jay and the last person I was with cheated on me. And every time I go out to the bars with my friends, all my friends get approached by people I don't know who. How do I find love? Coach me.

 

Jay Shetty (00:24:55):

So first mistake, and I wouldn't say this in a coaching session, but to speed it up for us, first mistake, you are already thinking it's about what do you like about the partner? I'm saying, what do you like about yourself

 

Mel Robbins (00:25:05):

And where do you start if you don't know

 

Jay Shetty (00:25:07):

Yourself, do you? So very simple. When you go out for a dinner, as soon as you get back, whether you like the food at that restaurant or not, don't you?

 

Mel Robbins (00:25:15):

Yes.

 

Jay Shetty (00:25:15):

If you went out for a burrito, whether you like it or not, if you went out for Italian, whether you like it or not, how about we start doing that with people, places, and projects? How about we start reflecting when we take on a project at work, after we complete it? Let's sit there and reflect. Don't reflect while you're doing it because that can often be misleading. Sometimes a piece of food comes out and it looks awkward or uncomfortable, or it's a weird color. Then you try it and it's incredible. So it's only by trying do we know? And so after you finish your project to work, did I like it or not? What did I like about it? What didn't I like about it? Was that my comfort or was that my discomfort? Three questions really easy. Did I like it or not? What did I like about it or not about it and what I didn't like about it? Was that just because it was uncomfortable or is it because I actually found it terrible? And if you did that with people, groups you spend time with, so many of us never change our friends over a decade because we never reflected when we left.

 

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You'd never go back to a restaurant if you had a bad experience. That's true. But you keep going back to a same person. Oh my

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:20):

God, we crawl back. We crawl back. We begged them back in our

 

Jay Shetty (00:26:23):

Lives because we never took that time to reflect because it was always about them. We make it about them. So I'll give you a

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:29):

Relation. Okay, so stop. I want to make sure everybody just heard that skill, number one, rule number one, let yourself be alone. But what I want to say is this was the huge paradigm for shift for me. So much of us are chasing and seeking love. And step one that I just got from you is you got to make it about yourself and not about the other person. And until you understand the things you love and the things that make you come alive when you're alone, 

Jay Shetty (00:27:00):

Yeah, we keep making lists of what we want in someone else. We keep making a list of I want them to be kind. I want them to be tall. I want them so all of our energy is being pointed outwards rather than saying, who am I becoming? Who am I striving to grow into? What is it that I'm passionate about? When you are focused on all of that, all of a sudden you feel you have so much more to offer in a relationship. You walk into it recognizing that someone would be fortunate to be with you and you'd be fortunate to be with them because you have something to share. I think most of us, 

Mel Robbins (00:28:23):

Situation before?

 

Jay Shetty (00:28:24):

I have been in a situation before many times in my teens where I sadly, and I regret this, I showed love to people in order for them to validate me. So it wasn't that I didn't like them, but I showed them more extreme forms of passion and love because I thought they'd say, Jay, that's amazing. You are the best person I've ever been with. I just wanted to hear those words. And that comes back from my childhood trauma of being bullied for being overweight, for being bullied, for being Indian, for having a group of girls who lined up next to my football match when I was 11 years old shouting, she's out of your league.

 

(00:29:09):

Yeah. So I was 11 years old in primary school or elementary school, as you say, in the us. And there was one girl in school that everyone had a crush on, right? You're 11 years old. And there was one girl that every guy had a crush on, and all the guys knew and all the girls knew, but she didn't know we had a crush on her. And one day I came in late from I think a doctor's appointment or something like that, and everyone was laughing when I came in and I didn't know what they were laughing about. So I sat down and everyone was giggling at me and pointing at me, and I was thinking, what's going on here? And then one of my friends slipped me a note and the note, I opened it and it said, she knows. I was like, she knows what I realized that all the guys and all the girls had told her that the only person in the class that had a crush on her was me. And I was considered one of the least desirable people in my class because of my weight and the color of my skin. And so for the rest of that week, all the girls bullied me standing behind. Literally we were playing, when I say football, I mean soccer, but

 

(00:30:17):

We're playing football. And I was a goalkeeper because that was the only position I'd be allowed to play. And the girls lined up behind the goal and shouted out, she's out of your league. I can't believe you thought you could get her. I can't believe that you thought she could be with you. And I realized that that trauma, that experience transferred over to my teens when now all I wanted was a girl to say, you're the best. You're amazing. You're incredible. Because of that other statement I'd heard all those years before,

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:45):

It's amazing how we have these experiences and it just blocks our ability to let love in because we don't believe that we're worth it. That also I'm realizing impacted how you first showed up when you started dating your wife, Roddy.

 

Jay Shetty (00:31:01):

Yes. Yeah. So

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:02):

Can we talk about that?

 

Jay Shetty (00:31:04):

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:04):

I know that you were in business school when you first heard a monk speak at the age of 18, and you felt the call to become a monk. And did you meet Roddy before you became a monk? Or how did you guys meet?

 

Jay Shetty (00:31:20):

Yeah, so going back to that moment, and then I'll dive into that question, I feel like you spend your life seeking validation. You then don't get it in the way you wanted it, and then you finally decide you have to validate yourself.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:36):

Yes.

 

Jay Shetty (00:31:36):

And that journey can be 10 years, 20 years, or even 50 years. And so the shorter we make that journey, the better it is. I met the monks when I was 18 years old, and I met Radhi just before six months before I was about to go and become a monk. So my final year of university and the way we met was I was using the last six months, I would use all my weekends to go to the temple in my local area to train and to be honest, just to stay out of trouble because I was like, if I'm at university during my weekends, I'm going to get into trouble, so I need to go and practice. And I was asked to show, a lady came in one day, she was around my mom's age, and I was asked to show her around to do some services and some rituals at the temple.

 

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I've never been asked to do this before this day. I've never been asked to do it again. And at the end of it, she said to me, she said, I have a daughter that I'd love to introduce to you. I'd love for her to meet someone who's into spirituality and meditation. She's probably around your age. And I said, well, I'm so sorry. I'm going to go off and become a monk, but I'd introduce her to my sister. So that woman that I'd met happened to be RA's mom, and she brought Radhi in to meet me, and I introduced her to my sister, and I saw Radhi. I probably exchanged three words with her. I thought she was stunning and attractive and beautiful, hence what I was saying about finding her attractive. But in my head, I was like, no, no, no. I'm training to be a monk.

 

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I need to stay focused. Don't worry about it. And so her and my sister became friends. When I came back from the monastery, her and my sister had become really close, rather was at my house all the time. My sister was at hers all the time. And then my sister was our middle person, our wing person who helped us get the message across. So we met before, and it was four years from, and then I found out that her mother that day prayed that her daughter would find someone like me. And I found that out many years later. And now I know she hates me because we moved to la

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:36):

Oh, your mother-in-law hates

 

Jay Shetty (00:33:37):

You. Yeah, my mother-in-law hates me because we moved to la. So

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:39):

You mentioned though that you've made mistakes in love, and I want to just connect that experience of being bullied as a kid and then feeling like if you just really get somebody to love you back, then you're going to feel worthy for how you showed up in the beginning with your now wife.

 

Jay Shetty (00:34:02):

Yeah. So I realized that I think another big thing for me was chasing the approval of a male figure. My dad was quite aloof when I was growing up, and I've always considered my dad to be more of a friend than a father. And even till this day, my dad's my friend, I can always talk to him, but it was my mom who taught me how to shave my beard, and that's why I have great grooming habits. I

 

Mel Robbins (00:34:26):

Was going to say, is that why you still have a beard? Did she not do a good job with that?

 

Jay Shetty (00:34:29):

I'm kidding. Yeah, exactly. But my mom taught me how to take care of my skill. My mom was the one who was teaching me and guiding me through all the things that you think a dad would do. And what was really interesting about that is I think the monks became my first male role models, and I was looking for them to validate me. Now, the interesting thing when you're trying to get validated by monks is they don't validate you. They're just trying to teach you the truth. And so that's when I learned to validate myself during that time, and it was really powerful. But here's the interesting thing. We're conditioned so deeply. We've watched so many movies, we've listened to so many songs, we've seen so many cliches and examples of what love truly is that we snap back into those habits as soon as we're back. So as soon as I came back from the monastery and I started dating Radhi around six months later, I snapped back into all my old habits because that's how strong it is. So if anyone ever feels compelled 

Mel Robbins (00:35:28):

Yes. What is wrong with us, Jay?

 

Jay Shetty (00:35:31):

Well, that's the thing, is that the conditioning of the gifts and gaps that our parents left become the map of how we look for love. So if our parents gave us gifts, we are looking for people who give us those same gifts. If your parents were present, if they turned up to your dance recital, if they turned up to your soccer game, you now are looking for someone who's forever present. Unlikely as an adult, that's not always going to happen. And if your parents left gaps, maybe they didn't believe in you, maybe they criticized you, maybe they compared you to a sibling or a family member or a cousin, now you have that gap and you're hoping someone else is going to fill it. And what I learned during my time as a monk was whatever you want from someone else, first, give it to yourself.

 

(00:36:19):

If you are looking from compliments from someone else, give it to yourself first. If you are looking for understanding from someone else, understand yourself first. And if you're looking for validation and affection, do that for yourself first. That's why I love your high five habit. It's perfect, right? The reason why it works is you are asking everyone to look in the mirror every morning and give themselves exactly what they need from the day, and they can give it to themselves in the mirror. You're high fiving yourself. That is a perfect demonstration of how deeply you believe in this.

 

Mel Robbins (00:36:55):

I'm going to ask Jay to do something in a minute because he's in the middle of explaining rule number two, which is don't ignore your karma and you have this beautiful meditation, but I just want to offer up something to someone who may be listening and feeling like. But one of the most simple exercises you could ever do if you feel like you just can't break through in this area of being in a healthy relationship or truly finding or attracting love with the right person, just write down on a piece of paper everything you're looking for and then be that person yourself. And something funny happens. You're actually looking for things that are avoid. And if you be those things for yourself, that person starts to show up. But Jay has an even deeper tool. 

Jay Shetty (00:38:01):

Yeah, eyes closed.

 

Mel Robbins (00:38:01):

Yeah.

 

Jay Shetty (00:38:02):

Amazing. I love that. Yeah, I'd love to do that. I think. So for anyone who's doing this, I'm just adding a disclaimer that this can be emotive, it can be challenging. And so please do this when you're in a safe space, when you are feeling more steady and you're feeling at ease. And maybe do it when you can follow it up with a bit of journaling or a bit of moment of reflection and maybe even a conversation with a partner or a friend or someone that you trust. And so just to give that before we dive in, but I just want everyone to gently and softly close their eyes

 

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And just take a moment to be present with your breath, the seat or bed or floor beneath you, and whatever sounds are in your environment, I want you to visualize yourself meeting your 13-year-old self, visualize their face, visualize what you were probably wearing, visualize yourself at that age. And as you get closer, give them a warm loving embrace. And now I want you to share with your younger self everything you wish you heard at that age, everything you wish you were told, you can give it to them right now. You are enough. You are worthy of love. You have what it takes, whatever it may be for you. Shower them with all the love that you deserve then and now. And now. Ask them what wisdom or insight they have for you. Just listen carefully and if nothing comes up immediately,

 

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Allow it to arise. Even after this meditation tomorrow or this week, what advice or insight or

 

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Words does your younger self have for you? Once again, give them a warm, loving, embrace all the love, all the connection, and know that their inner child is forever within you. And you can revisit them, shower them with love whenever you like. And when you're ready, you can gently and softly open your eyes and just be present. Thank you. Thank you for That's beautiful. Allowing us that space.

 

Mel Robbins (00:42:23):

I literally, do you mind if I share?

 

Jay Shetty (00:42:27):

Please. I'd love to hear if you are feel

 

Mel Robbins (00:42:29):

So

 

Jay Shetty (00:42:31):

Willing to. Yeah,

 

Mel Robbins (00:42:33):

I saw myself standing there with this Dorothy Hamill haircut, which was that famous figure skater, let me tell you, the 13-year-old Mel Robbins does not look like the average 13-year-old today.

 

Jay Shetty (00:42:47):

That's why I picked that awkward age. No, at 13, I don't think there's one.

 

Mel Robbins (00:42:51):

Oh man, I've got this beton sweater on. I don't know why I'm focused on the clothes, but

 

Jay Shetty (00:42:56):

I love it. That's good. No, no, that's really good visualization. I mean, if we had longer, and as I described in the book, the more detailed, the better. That's great. That's fantastic.

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:05):

And I just was struck by how little I was, and I remember what I said is I've been waiting a long time for someone to say this, and then the wisdom was, please say this to me every day.

 

(00:43:26):

And that whole thing that you said about showering yourself with love. And one of the things I want to point out about your book is that it's not only about the rules, everybody, but I'm on page for example, 71 where he's unpacking rule two, and he has meditations in here where you can meditate on solitude. He has step-by-step guides for writing letters to your younger self. So it's not just the science and the rules, it's also the tools. And one of the other places that I want to go, Jay, because I think there's so many people that struggle with the beginning stages of love, and we were joking earlier about lust versus love and chemistry versus true connection.

Jay Shetty (00:44:37):

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Mel Robbins (00:44:39):

And I want to try to figure out which one you're in and which one I'm in with

 

Jay Shetty (00:44:41):

Our partnership. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And what's really interesting is that I found that someone can say, I love you, and it means they want to spend their life with you. And someone else can say, I love you, and it means they want to spend a night with you. And the definition of love can truly be that large of a spectrum. When someone says, I love you, you don't stop to say, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean? You just say, I love you back. And what you forget in that moment is that you signed up to your contract of the word love, but they signed up to their contract of the word love. If their love meant, I like this right now. That's what they meant when they said, I love you. And if you said I love you, and that meant I want to be with you forever, then that's what you signed up for. And you never checked whether your contracts matched. You never checked whether your definitions matched. And the unhealthy part about that is your expecting what you signed up to.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:46):

It's so true.

 

Jay Shetty (00:45:47):

And so that's where it comes in. So the four phases of love are attraction, dreams, disappointments, and adapting and trust. And so the first one is attraction, as we said,

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:03):

Right?

 

Jay Shetty (00:46:04):

You have an attraction, you get excited.

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:06):

There's a spark.

 

Jay Shetty (00:46:07):

There's a spark. There could be something there. Now, if there isn't a spark on the other side that withers away, it's getting, can we just

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:14):

Start right

 

Jay Shetty (00:46:15):

There? Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:16):

Because I think especially again, mother of daughters and a son, but I'm more worried about it with our daughters. The attraction piece seems to flood everybody's ability to think. And what are the red flags that this is the I love you tonight. Don't text me tomorrow, and I have signed up for I love you means we're at least going to breakfast. No, I'm serious. Because as you think about the attraction phase, there has to be the spark. There has to be that moment where you're like, I'd spend 200 hours with you even though I don't even really know you right now. What are red flags for when you realize my concept of what I'm signing up for is very different than what this person's concept is?

 

Jay Shetty (00:47:12):

Yeah. So what's really interesting about the way I see red flags is I think a lot of people think red flags are things that other people show you. And for me, it's more about how strong your radar is and what you're looking for. Because people just think, oh, someone's just going to show you all their flaws and mistakes, very unlikely because most people walk into dating or meeting someone as a job interview, and so they're presenting their best selves. And so 

Mel Robbins (00:47:48):

Give me an example

 

Jay Shetty (00:47:48):

I'll give you an example. If someone is attractive, you assume they must be trustworthy. If someone is smart or they went to a good school, you assume they must be organized at home. If someone is wealthy or famous, you assume they must be likable. So what we we're doing is we are giving people qualities they haven't shown us.

 

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If someone is kind in the moment, we think they must be kind all the time. We've never seen whether they're kind, when they're stressed, we've never seen when they're kind, they're tired. We've never seen if they're kind with their mom, their family, or anyone else, they've just shown us one moment of kindness, and we've amplified that to be that. They're kind all the time. Another red flag is something called the context effect. So studies show that if you are holding a warm drink while on a date with someone, you are more likely to have warm feelings towards them,

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:44):

Really,

 

Jay Shetty (00:48:44):

Really with that biologically simple. The context effect also refers to if you bump into someone at a wedding, you are more likely to think that could be the one, because love is all around

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:55):

No way.

 

Jay Shetty (00:48:56):

Truly, the context effect is also that when you walk out of a theater and you just watched a romantic comedy and they went off into the sunset happily ever after, you are more likely to believe you're going to bump into someone that you could do that with. So we have to be so aware of are we actually with this person in environments that don't promote and flourish love, but in the realities of life?

 

Mel Robbins (00:49:18):

How the heck do you do that when your hormones are going crazy? And yes, you've worked on knowing yourself and what you love, but I just want to, it's

 

Jay Shetty (00:49:26):

Yeah good question.

 

Mel Robbins (00:49:27):

I want to just come back to this idea of in the attraction phase where you're not thinking rationally, how do you notice this in yourself? Do you start bargaining with yourself? You start to notice that you are crossing lines with your own values. What would you counsel somebody to really pay attention to if they continue to fall into a problem of making themselves available to people who are not actually available to you?

 

Jay Shetty (00:49:54):

Yeah. So the first thing that I'd look at is, is that person responding at the pace you are responding, right? Is that person responding at the pace you're responding, or are you constantly having to force play games? Are you spending a lot of time in? So what's really interesting about what you're saying is that the biology shows also that spark we feel at the beginning, what we're really experiencing is excitement and stress at the same time. So the excitement is, I think they're hot. The stress is do they I'm hot?

 

Mel Robbins (00:50:27):

Yes.

 

Jay Shetty (00:50:28):

The excitement is, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I just texted them. I have their number. Their stresses is when are they going to text back?

 

Mel Robbins (00:50:35):

Yes.

(00:51:27):

That. You message them, but then you also take time again to slow down and say, I don't need to see them every day. I can see them once a week and see how this goes. And I think people are scared of doing that, and I want to validate. Your hormones are going to push you and take over, and you can't control that. You can only control what happens when they finally calm down. And you can either look at that and go, oh, the spark went, or you go, oh, now I actually get to see, it's almost like it's been foggy this whole time, and

 

(00:51:54):

Now the fog's cleared. Now I can actually see. So sometimes you're just waiting or hoping that happens quicker, and then you can actually see, so you could do two things. You can slow down the pace of a relationship emotionally, but you could spend more time with them to learn more about them in different scenarios. And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes we make when we first see someone. We only see them in a very specific scenario. We see them on date night. We see them at a movie, we see them at a dinner. What about you see them with a few of their friends? What about you? Get to know them over an activity that puts you both in an uncomfortable situation. What about you go to an escape room? What about you go to a pottery class? What about you go to something where neither of you have any skills, but you get to try something new?

 

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Because now you get to see how they deal with new things. I remember the first time I took Rahi to an escape room and we did a lot of activities when we first started dating and got together after we'd gone past the first few dates and the escape room, she could tell that I am obsessed with figuring things out. I'm obsessed with time management, and I am pretty intense to be with when we have one hour to get out of a locked room, and I'd be like, Roddy, come on. We've got 55 minutes left. We've got to stay focused. Come on. Okay, you looked at that. I'm giving all these directions. And she's just like, whoop, she's just bumping around. And then she'll push something and the trap door will open, right? She's an amazing lateral thinker. And it was interesting because that's where I started to learn that I'm an intense, obnoxious person to be around. She got to see that. Thankfully she still stayed with me. But the idea is you see so much more of a person if you do things with them that are not an interview. And I really believe that if your relationship starts as an interview, it will end like a rejection and a firing because

 

Mel Robbins (00:53:43):

Hold on, hold on. Did everybody hear that? If your relationship starts like an interview, it will end in a rejection or firing. And I keep thinking about this idea of slowing down because if it's meant to last, you have plenty of time and the speed is what's going to make it break.

 

Jay Shetty (00:54:01):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:54:02):

One of the things that I want to really focus on next, because Jay unpacks the four phases of attraction, dreams, struggle, and trust in the book is I think my favorite rule, honestly, of all eight is number four, your partner is your

 

Jay Shetty (00:54:22):

Goal. I thought it would be when you said your favorite rule, I was thinking it would be this

 

Mel Robbins (00:54:26):

Way. Why did you think that it would

 

Jay Shetty (00:54:27):

Be? I don't know. I just feel like obviously you and Chris have such an incredible hard work based, genuine, real relationship and marriage, and it's like, I think as you spend more time together, you start learning so much more through your partner and from your partner. And I don't know, I just felt it. It was intuitive. I was just like, Mel. Yeah, I can see Mel being Chris's guru, and I can see Chris being Mel's guru.

 

Mel Robbins (00:54:53):

Will you explain what that means? I think when you first hear your partner is your guru, I didn't realize what it meant because it didn't mean what I thought it meant.

 

Jay Shetty (00:55:03):

And I want to encourage people to understand that this step comes as you deepen a relationship. This isn't something you want on day one. If anyone's listening to that rule and you don't read the book and you're thinking, oh yeah, my partner's, my business mentor, or they're my coach, or they're my therapist, that's not what I'm talking about at all. What I'm saying is that as you deepen your friendship, as you deepen your relationship, as you actually get to know each other better, your partner becomes the one person who exposes all your flaws, all your weaknesses and all your truths to you without even trying. And I'll give a personal example of this. When I first met Radhi, I didn't have anything. I didn't have a job. I was in $25,000 worth of debt. I didn't have any job offers or prospects, and I was being rejected by 40 different companies during the time we were dating.

 

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And so I would tutor economics and subjects that I was great at college and university to students save up to pay for our dates. And I always felt intimidated that we'd go on dates and I'd be with her friends or family, and they'd be like, well, Jay, what are you doing? What are you up to? And I really had no answer because I'd just come out of being a monk and surprise, surprise, no one wants to hire a former monk. And then it was really interesting because as my career took off, and I've been with Radhi obviously since before, and then as my career took off, I started to hit these external milestones.

 

(00:56:39):

And I'd hold them up almost, not physically, but not physically, but mentally. I would hold them up and I'd be like, Radhi, love me for this. Look what I just achieved. I did this, love me for this, and she wouldn't love me more for that. And so then I achieved something bigger and I'd be like, well, look at this. Look what I did. Look what I did for us. Look how amazing I am. Love me for this. And she didn't react differently. And so then I kept going, and then I held it up, and it was at that point I realized there's only two truths. Either my wife doesn't love me, which I know wasn't true because she'd shown me love in so many ways, or that there was something I was missing. And so what I realized was I was trying to get my wife to love me for what I achieved when she actually loved me for who I am. She didn't teach me that by getting out of whiteboard and drawing bullet points. She taught me that by loving me only for my essence and who I was. So every time she would acknowledge me or appreciate me, it was not about the views or the downloads or the amount of people that were commenting. That was never the stuff she congratulated. The things she congratulated was, I really love what I learned from you in that moment today,

 

(00:57:58):

Or I really loved how you dealt with that challenge, or I saw that you were being criticized for this, and I saw how you responded. That's what I love about you. So just in the way she loved me, she was teaching me how to love myself. And I think that your partner's the only person who can do that for you because they know you so intimately. But the interesting thing is a guru in the way I learned from a guru and usam in the way I studied, gurus don't judge. They don't critique. They're compassionate and empathetic. They don't complain and compare to show you your flaws. They reflect the truth back to you just by being present with you so that you can see yourself. And so a guru isn't a partner who's telling you what to do or manipulating and controlling you because that's ownership. That's not a relationship. And I think,

 

Mel Robbins (00:58:54):

Ooh, hold on everybody. There was another one. The monk is in the house dropping the wisdom. I love making you laugh.

 

Jay Shetty (00:59:02):

Oh gosh, you made me laugh so much.

Jay Shetty (00:59:24):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:59:24):

Will you talk more about that? Because I think there's a lot of people listening to you right now going, your marriage sounds amazing. And my relationship sucks because I do not have a partner that is like that. I have a partner that's criticizing me. I have a partner that is doing all those things that make me feel bad. So talk to that person and this notion of partnership versus ownership.

 

Jay Shetty (00:59:52):

Yeah, absolutely. And so we come into relationships based on the imprints that our parents gave us, as we talked about before or even our first partners gave us. And we also have so much inside of us that's unresolved that that comes out in four ways. And these four things are comparison, criticism, complaining, and control. We think that if we do these four things, we feel better about ourselves. Our partner may change. And overall, this is the language we've learned in how to talk to anyone. And so what we do is we compare them to someone else thinking that if they know what one of our friends did for their anniversary, then our partner will get their act together. No one in the history of comparison has ever changed their life because they were compared to someone else.

 

Mel Robbins (01:00:51):

It's true.

 

Jay Shetty (01:00:51):

You don't make someone act better by making them feel inferior. It doesn't work that way. People act better because they feel inspired to, they feel called to, they feel energized in their life. But we try and use comparison. If someone else is trying to control you, it can often come in the form of care. It can look like care, but it's actually control. And there's only one way to know. Is someone giving you care in the way you want to better you? Or are they doing it to make you more comfortable and convenient for them? Are they telling you what to wear? Are they telling you which of your friends are a good influence on you? When you hear that, you think, oh, they might actually care about me. They might actually care about me because they're telling me these friends are a bad influence. These friends are a good influence. But wait a minute, I've never actually told them what I even do with these friends. I've never even told them. And by the way, I did some of this when I met Radhi. When I met Radhi, I would look at some of her friends and I'd think, well, I don't think they're a good influence on her. And even if it came from a place of care, I realized that wasn't my position. Some of these friends had been in her life far longer than I'd been in her life. Wow.

 

Mel Robbins (01:02:07):

That whole

 

Jay Shetty (01:02:07):

Paradigm

 

Mel Robbins (01:02:08):

Of ownership versus partnership. I hope that's a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Is somebody controlling you and trying to change you and own what you're doing? Or are they truly in partnership supporting you with your goals and hearing you?

 

Jay Shetty (01:02:27):

And it applies the other way too, Mel. I think a lot of us who are in personal growth, who are in self-development, we have a bad habit of wanting to improve our partners, but not in the way they want, in the way we want. The amount of people that come to me and say, Jay, I'm really begging my partner to read your book. And I'm like, please don't. Please don't. I mean it because I want you to actually stay together. And maybe what they need to do is they need to watch one of my interviews with an athlete they love. Maybe that's what they need to, maybe they don't even need to learn from me. Maybe they need to learn from a completely different person. And maybe it's one of our friends, maybe it's someone else. Maybe it's someone from decades ago. The point is, are you trying to get them to the next step in their journey or are you trying to get them to the next step in your journey?

 

Mel Robbins (01:03:15):

Oh, okay. Hold on everybody. Did you just hear that? Because that is literally just

 

Jay Shetty (01:03:20):

Make me laugh.

 

Mel Robbins (01:03:21):

That's it. No, so I really like to stop

 

Jay Shetty (01:03:25):

Because Yeah, no, it's beautiful. You do it so well.

 

Mel Robbins (01:03:26):

I just want everybody listening to get the wisdom that you are weaving together, because I think that's it right there. Are you trying to get them to step forward? You said it better. Something about,

Mel Robbins (01:05:10):

Yes. And I think you also have to be present enough to know when someone that you quote love is pushing you off your path, that you're busy supporting them on theirs, but they're not meeting you halfway.

Jay Shetty (01:05:28):

Please

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:28):

Is that I do think you should send this episode two a person that you're in a relationship with, because I think it provides a tremendous amount of things to talk about. And it might not be the same things that you think you want to talk about. But in closing, Jay, there's one more thing I wanted to ask you, please. And that is, I just keep thinking about this idea that the whole purpose of your relationship is to help your partner achieve their goals. If you're in a relationship where you are focused on their goals and they're focused on yours, that is true partnership because you are showing up in a way that somebody really feels honored and seen and heard and supported, and you will feel the exact same way. And it's so simple and we make it so complicated. And so I want to ask you one final thing. Obviously we're friends, but I did research before you came on, and I noticed this article in The Telegraph, and I did not realize that you had officiated JLo's wedding. 

Jay Shetty (01:07:14):

What a great question. And I want to add that when I do officiate anyone's wedding, it's a meditation that actually, and this is part of my practice and the tradition I learned in as a monk, that if you ever got the opportunity to officiate anyone's wedding, and I was ordained in my tradition, but even when we're doing an agnostic wedding, the idea is that you start meditating and praying for the couple from the moment you're asked. So the journey doesn't start on the day when you turn up. It starts from the moment you are asked and requested to do that. So I usually start meditating anywhere from one to three months before on that day, on that couple on

 

(01:08:01):

Union. So I would say that we think that the greatest act of love is to give love, share love,

 

(01:08:21):

Feel love. But actually the greatest act of love is loving someone so much that they learn to love themselves. And that's the act of love that you have loved someone so beautifully and deeply, not that they feel loved by you, but that they've learned to love themselves. And I think that's hard. When we love out of ego and selfishness and pride, we make people feel impressed by how much we love them. I would not feel proud if would just feel I feel loved by my husband. That's great. That's awesome. I'd feel more proud if she said, the way Jay loves me makes me love myself more. And whenever I write about love, whenever I try and share love with friends, family, team members, anyone, anyone that I cross paths with, my only goal is to hope that the way I love them will help them fall in love with themselves. And that what I see in them, they'll see in themselves, and that what I don't see in them, they'll discover within themselves. And so I think whether it's marriage, whether it's moving in, whether it's a long-term relationship, that's what I'd have to say.

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:35):

Beautiful. And what I want to say is in case nobody else tells you today, Jay and I want to tell you that we love you.

 

Jay Shetty (01:09:44):

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:45):

And we believe in you.

 

Jay Shetty (01:09:46):

Absolutely.

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:47):

And your ability too. Feel express, give and receive the love that you deserve in your life,

 

Jay Shetty (01:09:57):

And start noticing all the love that is there in your life. And you'll start feeling and finding the one that isn't because you are loved by your brother, sister, family, child, dog, cat. You are loved. You're loved by Mel and me. You are loved. And if we start noticing how loved we are, we'll find that we're not as drained of love as we feel we

 

Mel Robbins (01:10:24):

Are. Ladies and gentlemen, dogs and cats, everybody out there, Jay, shut up.

 

Jay Shetty (01:10:31):

No, Robin's everyone. No, Mel, you're amazing. Oh, I love you. I love you too. Thank you for pushing me. Thank you for challenging me. Thank you for really getting to the heart of it, because you have to. And obviously the book does that. But I'm glad we got that

 

Mel Robbins (01:10:43):

Too. Dude, I wore my red pants for you.

 

Jay Shetty (01:10:45):

I love it.

 

Mel Robbins (01:10:45):

I like dress. You're like your fricking

 

Jay Shetty (01:10:47):

Book. You're so on brand. It's amazing. And I went all black to match. Yeah. Look us together. We do it. We did it.

 

Mel Robbins (01:10:55):

Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.