Welcome back to on Purpose. Today, I want to share an amazing conversation I had with Caitlin Bristow on her podcast Off the Vine about what does it mean to love? We go into this topic deeply, as well as how to attract the right person, how to put a stop to unhealthy relationship patterns and toxic traits and triggers in our relationships, and define what it actually means to be in love for ourselves. I love this conversation. I feel like we went super deep and I can't wait to
share this with you. Hey everyone, I'm so excited because we're going to be adding a really special offering onto the back of my solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily Jay is a daily series on Calm and It's meant to inspire you while outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress free life. We dive into a range of topics and the best part is each episode is only seven minutes long, so you can incorporate it
into your schedule no matter how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the on Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for you this year, so I'll be playing a hand picked Daily Jay during each of my Friday podcasts. This week, we're talking about your relationships and how to create the most meaningful connections with the people that matter to you. Of course, if you want to listen to The Daily Jay every day, you can go subscribe to Calm. So go to Calm dot com
forward slash j for forty percent off your membership. Today, I'm excited.
We have a couple of meet all friends.
Do you know Penny Tho, Yes, of course, yeah, yeah, of course I do. Yeah, so Penny.
I used to live with Penny in Vancouver no way, Yes, like seventeen years ago and her sister. I was in her sister's wedding party. I was just with Penny in New York.
That's amazing, Yeah, because she was.
Saying that you were just at one of the.
Races yeah Austin, Yeah, Austin.
Yeah, absolutely, those so fun, those races.
But she's so phenomenally talented as well. She's she's unbelievable.
She That's where I've literally gotten all my life advice and business from her and amazing.
Yeah.
Now you and I have your book right here, I'm talking to you about it. That's eight Rules of Love I'm so excited because I'd love like a book that you can also take action with, which is so incredible, And after reading this book, I'm curious your thoughts on Valentine's Day.
That's that's a great question to start, and no one's asked me that yet. I think that a lot of these days across the calendar are invented as great ways to present love and perform love. But to me, I think sometimes they create a belief that we have to wait for that day to show love, or we show love emphatically on that day, but then we forget the rest of the days. And so I see them as a wonderful room. I see them as a great way
of recognizing and celebrating something so special. But at the same time, I think it puts so much pressure on people. I think it makes people do things they would never do for someone. I think people feel pressured to be someone they're not or do something that doesn't feel right or likely for them to do. And so I think we all have to make of it what we want to make of it ourselves and not feel like we have to buy into the society's definition of what Valentine's
Day should be. Or what the movies say you should do on Valentine's Day, And so I think sometimes it plays into that Hollywood romance of what love is meant to be, and it takes us away from what love actually is.
It's so true. Our perception is so skewed sometimes of what love and what we think love is. And I mean, whether that's social media or the movies, it's happened for so long. I can think of all the Disney movies or all the wrong coms I saw growing up, and then you have this perception of what love is supposed to be. But then you your parents love, and then
that's a different kind of love. And then you see the love that you have and you're like, why does this not feel like the magic that they show in the movies. So you said that nobody really sits down and teaches us how to love. The question that I had is, I'm like, how would someone even do that? Because we all feel loved so differently. Do you think this is something we should be teaching as parents.
No, that's a great question. I don't think that we can teach it like how we learned in school. But I think there needs to be an element of what to look out for, what to understand. I think it's a beautiful thing for anyone to try and teach and learn. I think a lot of the time we teach people what to think about love and not how to think about love. And so you wouldn't say love is xyz and that's what it looks like and that's what you
should be looking for. I think that's unhealthy because it can mean different things to different people, as you rightly said. But I think we should encourage people to say, well, this is how love could make you feel, or this this is what love could look like, and this is what healthy love looks like, and this is what toxic
relationships look like. I think having some wisdom and insight around healthy and unhealthy relationships probably is going to set you up better than a random conversation about love with so many different people in your family, as you were rightly saying, right you look at your parents' relationship, you see the relationship your friends have, you watch the movies and TV shows, and then you kind of make your own version up. But none of that is based on
cues that are healthy or insightful or thoughtful. And so as much as I don't think we need like a course on love. I do think we need a course on emotions and how to understand your own emotions, how to understand other people's emotions. And so I find that love may be too big for that. But emotions and emotional regulation and emotional awareness, these are skills and tools that would actually help you have better relationships. And that's why in the book, even though it's the Eight Rules
of Love, the eight rules are about communication. They're about debate and fighting, they're about connecting. They're about the things you can control.
Yeah, that's true. I guess that's a good point of talking about the things you can control. Where do you think the culture around love, with the fairy tale endings and the perfect match come from. Do you think that does stem from like movies in Hollywood.
I think it comes from a few places. I think there's a deep part of us that wants to believe and wants to yearn for this perfect love. And I think that that's true and fair and good. I think the challenge is that the image that's been created of perfect love is what's unhealthy. So it's not the idea of perfect love that's unhealthy. It's the idea of a perfect love in this way that sends us on the
wrong path. I think that when you look at movies, we all know that they show you everything up until people move in together, or if they show you people moving in together, they fight and then make up over something fairly superficial. Or you look at couples who do the same things on the date night in the movies, or the anniversary parties and the events. And so I do feel that media has played a massive role even today.
And I give this story in the book of my own proposal, and when I proposed to my wife, I did it. I mean, I'll cut the long story short. Everyone can read the book for the full version. But in the book I talk about how I did the full a cappella song, singing Bruno Mars, will you marry Me? I did, obviously, I got down on one knee. I had a horse drawne carriage through London. And it's like I got all those ideas from social media. I did not get them from my wife. I did not get
them from my heart. I did not get them from what I thought was love. I got them from social media and TV. And so I think a lot of the ideas we have do come from media, and I think there has to be a filtering process to say, wait a minute, is this what my partner wants? Is this what I want? Is this what love looks like to the person I love? Or is it just something that I've adopted because I watched the show or a movie.
That's why your book is going to be so incredible for so many people. And I love that it's written for all stages of love. So whether you're looking for the right person or you found the right person and you want to keep them. But love is really confusing, and I'm sure it is because of you know, all the things we see or we compare, we don't know. But how do you know when it is the right person?
Do you really believe that there is that feeling where you're like when you know you know, or like, how do you do it's the right person? Because we all seem to want to, you know, if there's a fight or an argument, or they don't treat you right, and you're like, I could easily give up, So how do you know it's the right person?
Yeah? I feel that the idea that you know when you know, that's beautiful. If you've experienced that, and I love that for you, But that can't be our best advice on love because what that says to someone is you might have to meet eight billion people to decide whether you've met the one, Because what if you don't know after twenty thirty two hundred, three hundred people that you've dated or met. And so the way I like to look at it is I break it down into
three simple things. You know you're in love when these three things happen. You like their personality and they like yours. You respect their values and they respect yours. And you're committed to helping them towards their goals, and they're committed to you helping you towards your goals. And I find that that really simplifies it. I had someone the other day who told me that they were about to get married, and they said, Jay, what's your best advice? And I
asked them these questions. I said, do you know what their values are? Tell me your partner's top three values right now? And they said some really broad things like kind and family, And I was like, okay, but what do they really value inside of their family? And they were struggling, and then I said, what are your partner's top three goals over the next top three in the next three years, And they didn't know. And I started to realize that it's not about whether you know they're
the one. It's actually more about how much you know about them. And I think that's what we need to understand more, like, do you know how they respond to stress? Do you know how they respond to fatigue? Do you know when they're happy? Do you understand how they deal with sadness and disappointment? If you know all those things and you can still appreciate respect and love someone that's love love. Isn't this idea of I just feel great around them, but I actually don't know much about them.
Because that can feel good for six months to twelve months, but when you start looking at a long term relationship, that's what lets you down.
Yeah, because a lot of people, and I'll get to this, a lot of people feel like they just don't want to be alone. Feeling lonely is worse than you know, being in a relationship. And you can get through it after you know, six months, Oh it's fine, it's fine, And then a year happens and you're like, oh wait, I can't deal with this, but at the time you're like, that's better than being lonely. You point out that will I Ever Find Love is the most popular search engine
question that people ask. Why do you think that is? Why are we so worried about being alone and finding somebody?
Yeah? Yeah, So if you google will I ever, Google says the rest of the sentences find love, And if you say will I ever, it will say get married. So that's in the top three or top five as well. And then the next one is will I am net worth? Because people seem to be really fascinated by will I AM's net worth? And his networth is seventy million according to Google for anyone who's anyone who's googling it right now. But going back to the topic and everyone can check
there will I ever? Afterwards. I think it's something that scares us about the future. I think we're scared of being alone now, but we're more scared of being alone in the future. That's why the question is will I ever Find love? Because I think we're scared about the idea of growing old alone, of going through life alone, of seeing everyone in our life with someone else, but us not having that other person, and those are all
very valid emotions and very valid fears. But I think at the same time we have to realize that when you're feeling alone, when you're fearing being by yourself, you don't make good decisions. Research shows that if you get into a relationship because you feel alone, you're more likely to settle for less than you deserve, You're more likely to be dependent on that person, and you're less likely going to be able to break up even if it's
not working out. And so when you get into a relationship because you're scared of being alone, you actually choose someone who's not even what you want from a relationship. But you feel safer in a false way, and you feel secure in a false way, and you know that deep down, which scares you even more, and so your fear actually becomes worse. But again, you know, Kate. Then it comes from the idea that when we were young, if you had lunch on your own, you were considered
the weirdo. If you went to exactly exactly exactly from Super Bad.
Right, Yeah, I love that you brought.
Us exactly exactly. And if you had a birthday party and no one showed up, or a few people showed up, you were the loner. Hey. By the way, when you're thirty years old and over, if you get five of your best friends to show up, you're really happy about that. You take pride in that. And then you know, when you went to a wedding as a plus and you didn't have a plus one, people would be like, oh, poor you, like sad for you. So we've kind of made it feel awkward to be alone, and so now
we carry that. But we'd rather be with anyone than be alone. And that's the challenge.
Yeah, how can being alone actually help you attract the right person?
So I think we all start alone, and that's part of the puzzle that you know, we start alone, and being alone in and of itself will not help you attract the right person. Like just being single or just being alone doesn't do the work. But I think your question is what can you do when you're alone to attract the right person. I think the first thing is you need to do something hard and challenging by yourself.
You could take on a new workout class, you could take on a new health habit, you could take on I mean, what you're going off to do. You're going off to do an incredible retreat over the next few days, you're taking on something challenging. When you take on something challenging when you're alone, or when you're single, or when you're by yourself, you gain the strength and courage to
understand what you have inside of you. Now, when you get into a relationship, you realize you're bringing so much to the table. You realize that I'm a confident, complete, whole individual. You stop thinking like, oh, I hope I find my better half or I hope I find someone that completes me, and you start recognizing, well, actually, I have a lot to offer someone because I can do hard things by myself. I have done challenging things by myself, and so that would be the first thing I'd say
when you're alone. The second thing I'd say is you actually at time to understand and learn about yourself. I think when you don't do that alone, you just sign up and subscribe to what everyone else likes. If your partner likes a certain type of food, now you like it. If they like a certain type of entertainment, you like it. And then ten twenty years down the line, you realize you've lost who you are because you just followed what
they wanted to do. And I think a lot of people end up feeling like they lost themselves, but the truth is they never found themselves in the first place. So when you find yourself in solitude, you don't lose yourself in a relationship.
That is such a good point. People are probably like, Caitlyn, shut up about your ex relationship that we've heard about thirty million times, But I always related back to certain things where I completely lost myself in this relationship. But when you say that, it's not even that you lost yourself, it's you didn't find yourself in the first place. That
is so true. I completely found myself, you know, close to the age of thirty, and I was in all these relationships losing myself quote unquote to all these people when really I just hadn't found out who I really truly was. And I'm still figuring that out. But it's it's just it's such an fascinating topic, and I wanted to ask you the difference between loneliness and solitude for those listening.
Yeah, So, I love this beautiful statement from Paul Tillich where he talks about the fact that the English language has two words for being alone, but we only use one of them. We only use loneliness. And loneliness is the weakness of being alone, but solitude is the strength or as he he says, the glory of being alone. And it's really interesting that in our language we always say I'm alone, I'm single. We don't say I'm in solitude, right, we don't actually use that word because we see it
as a weakness. And if you see being alone as a weakness and you see a relationship as a strength, that means you're weak by yourself and you're only strong with this person. Now, if you're only strong with this person, when that person leaves or something goes wrong or there's a challenge, you go back to feeling weak again. And so your strength can't be found only in a relationship.
Your strength is found by yourself, through yourself, and when you're strong, when you're powerful, when you're courageous, then when you get into a relationship you can build more strength together. Right. If you've got a broken home and you only find a complete home with someone else, you feel broken continuously.
And that's when we have these ideas of like, oh they're out of my league, I'm not good enough for them, or maybe I've got to do something to impress them because you walked into the relationship feeling that they were better than you, because they made you whole. And so that never stops, like that continues even in the relationship of I have to earn their respect, or I have to impress them, or I have to keep them excited and interested. And if that's done from a place of love,
that's beautiful. But if it's done from a place of fear and insecurity, and that's the thing. Sometimes love and fear can look like the same thing. You're trying to make someone happy, you're trying to make someone feel good, you're trying to help someone, But are you doing it from a place of fear and insecurity because they might leave, or are you doing it from a place of you deeply respect and admire this person? Yeah?
Wow, God, I wish I could have you for like eight hours on this podcast. It's just so good. I mean, this is just such It's like it probably feels very simple to you, but it's so profound to me.
And no it doesn't. You're You're inspiring, Kaitlyn. I have to tell you, like you've asked me some questions, then it must me your energy because I've said things to
you today that have not said before. And yeah, and whenever I do that, and I'm very aware of that because A I try to be fully present and energetically present whenever I'm doing anything, and often I find when you're talking about a book or your you're meeting and doing lots of podcasts or interviews or whatever it may be, I try really hard to not repeat myself, but I find that when the host, especially today, I'm feeling that with you, I feel you're so present and these are
such real questions that I feel I'm being inspired energetically to give answers that I've not given before. So i just want to say share that because I'm honestly everything that is coming out of my mouth, I'm like, I'm going to tell my team, I'm like, guys, we need to write that down because I haven't said that before. So I really appreciate. Yeah, you're you're inspiring that, and I want you to know that's that's your energy as a host.
Wow, that is the most flattering thing anyone's ever said to me. But it's it's, you know, funny, as I've this is such a great job of mine to interview people that inspire me. And I went to my energy healer this morning and he even told me the same thing. He was like, I'm really impressed by your energy and I was like what. So then hearing you say it today, I'm like, Okay, I feel like I'm on the right path. I'm going to Hoffman tomorrow. Everything was lining up. This
is this is so great. So thank you for sharing that with me also, because that's extremely flattering.
No, well, I'm going to add also that I can vouch for it for all your audience because you won't tell them this. So I was extremely late today for this interview because I was running late from other interviews and my team was in touch with Kaitlin and I was dming her as well, frantically going, Kaitlyn, I'm really sorry. And I turned up today and Kaitlyn and her team received me as if I turned up early, like that's how much love I felt and how much kindness I felt.
And I was like, this is a human who's like living in that space, so she wouldn't have told you that. That's why I'm telling you all of that. And Kaitlyn, I really appreciate that too, so thank you.
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I won't too much more of your time. I do have some more questions please. People are so excited by the way that you're on this podcast today. I got so many DMS when I said that I was talking to you, so.
Ask everything, ask away. I want to make sure I answer all your questions.
I'm going to and you know what, I have been going through your book and I can't wait because I have such a long flight tomorrow. And I mean, it's just incredible. You're the way you speak, the way you write everything. I mean, some people are born with it, maybe, but you have obviously gone through phases in your life or things in your life that have gotten you to where you are today. And I know you what were you three years? Three years as a monk?
Yes, that's right, three years.
Yes, well, I can't even like to me, I mean, I did Bachelor. This is obviously not the same I'm saying I did Bachelor. I did not have a phone, is what I'm getting at. I didn't have a phone or TV or anything. And I was like, I'm so isolated.
And then for Hoffmann, I'm actually excited to be alone, not have a phone, get uncomfortable, and and I just feel like I can't even imagine how three years you probably at first maybe it was uncomfortable, and then did you just surrender to the process or did you fall in love with the silence? How was that for you?
Yeah? Well, I think I went into it with the mindset you're going into Huffman, which was I'm going to apply myself fully to this process. I'm really excited about it, and I'm going to follow it the way it's being taught, because then I'll actually get the reward. Yeah. Right, If I start cutting corners or if I start trying to make it more comfortable, then I'm not getting anything. Now.
The first month, my mind was going crazy because when you go silent externally, your internal dialogue eats you alive, and so your mind is just frantic. It's stressed, it's putting pressure on you, it's asking questions, it's demanding things of you. And you find that as you tolerate that
and as you listen to that, it gets quieter. But then what ends up happening is you start asking deeper questions, and more thoughtful questions come up, and you start going through some uncomfortable uncoverings and revelations where you're looking at dark sides or mistakes or regrets and you start excavating and that's tough, but it's glorious on the other side. And then the third thing that happened after all of that was a sense of comfort in discomfort, that the
idea that doing uncomfortable things became more natural. And I realized that this applies to anything, whether you're going to go and sit in a cold plunge, whether you're going to meditate, whether you're going to huffman, whether you go off and become a monk. The point is that we have to get comfortable with uncomfortable situations because life is full of uncertainty and discomfort. And so I think that's really what I would say made all the difference. That
it's not that I found it easy. It's not that it was natural for me. It's not that I'm this special human being could make this. That was not it was easy, it was naturally it was. It was tough. It's difficult. It's still tough today. I don't think it ever stopped, but I think you get more conscious and more skilled at being able to take on the challenge.
Let's talk about discomfort for a minute. How do we know when to break up from a tough relationship or push through to make it special? Because I guess I want to know, like, is fighting and arguing bad and when do we know that that's when we should leave or if it's like, well, we committed to each other and we need to get through this, and that's what makes a relationship special.
Yeah, I think there's a difference between we need to get through this and we want to get through this. So our relationship that lasts is that there's enthusiasm and energy to say, look, it's a tough time, but we're both going to figure it out. Right, We're both going to grow, we're both going to change, we're both going
to learn, and there's this collective thing. And what I find in relationships that often end or when one person wants to work on the relationationship and the other person doesn't. So it's never when both people are excited and enthused and focused on building the relationship. I think another thing I'd like to say is that when it comes to arguments and fighting, if it's manipulative, toxic, abusive, emotionally manipulative. That's not the kind of fighting or discussion or debate
that I encourage in the book. What I'm talking about is that every couple argues to some degree, but knowing how to argue better is a really healthy skill, and some agreements are really good. Like so, for example, my wife and I have some agreements. One is that we'll never raise our voice at each other. We can be angry and upset, but that doesn't mean we need to shout. We can express it, but it doesn't need to be really really loud. Second thing is we don't swear at
each other. We don't want to use that language with each other. The third thing is we don't throw around the word divorce or I'm going to leave you or break up. It's not something that you get to you every time things get tough or there's something challenging. And
so these are just some basic agreements. But I think having healthy agreements of how do we deal with conflict, how do we deal with when one of us is going through a really tough time personally, I think having those boundaries and agreements and rules is a really healthy way to form a relationship and ultimately a relationship that's going to last is because you both are willing to put in the work. That's what it comes down to. And if there's only one of you willing to put
in the work, that's you dragging the relationship forward. And that's a decision you have to make personally whether you want to be that person. Yeah.
I feel like sometimes when we do that, we're all just you know, if we cross a boundary or we let the boundary go, and then it's like, how do you come back from that? How do we how do we stop ourselves from making the same mistakes over and over again, which a lot of people do in relationships.
I think the way you drop yourself from making mistakes over and over again is you journal and write down how you feel in the moment. See. The challenging thing is that we forget when things get good, and we remember when things go bad, and so your memory only kicks in when everything's going wrong and you're like, oh my gosh, I should have seen those three red flags. But then when things got good, you went, oh, no,
they've changed. Everything's okay now. And that's why I always say to people, make a mental and physical record, a
journal of exactly how you feel. When things are bad and exactly how you feel when things are good, and when you keep that record, now when it happens again, you're like, oh, wait a minute, let me not be fooled by the momentary happiness and joy, because really, what I'm experiencing is this, And I think what we do is we kind of have this yo yo pendulum oscillating effect of like the good times are really good, but the bad times are really bad. And I think that
that's the unhealthy part. That you don't want to swing back and forth. It's actually better to be like, hey, we have some tough terms that we deal with them, and we have some great terms and they're awesome, but you just don't want that to get so wide and so extreme that you're literally swinging from one side to the other.
Right, And we'll talk about arguments for a minute. I know you say that people have different fight styles the vendor, the hyder, the exploder, and none of them are technically bad, But at what point do you think you should be concerned about the way you're fighting with your partner? Like maybe not the word fighting, but arguing is healthy. Like at what point, again, you'd probably saying, like if it's manipulative, that's probably yeah.
So I would say that two people in any relationship are going to have challenges and problems, and you're going to have to have uncomfortable conversations. Sometimes we avoid fights by suppressing how we really feel, and so we say to everyone we never fight, we never argue, and we wear that as like an achieved like a badge of honor, but really inside it's burning us because we're not talking
about what we really want to talk about. But on the flip side, I'd say that if arguments are constantly happening where both people are pointing the finger at the other person, and both people are not willing to look at their involvement and their responsibility in what's going on, that's when you can't go further right. It requires that ownership and responsibility where both people look back and say, I know what I'm getting wrong. You know what you're
getting wrong. Okay, let's get this right, rather than no, no, no, it's all about you. You're doing everything wrong, and then you're like, no, you're doing everything wrong. And if it's constantly a battle of you're the mistake, you're the problem, You're the issue, that can get very exhausting, very very quickly. And the challenge is, most of the time relationships don't end because there's a big issue. They end because keep arguing about little things. Right, we get exhausted from arguing
about the tiniest things. It doesn't have to be like someone cheated, or it doesn't have to be like someone stole money, or it doesn't have to be something as extreme as that. Sometimes it's literally you keep arguing about tiny things and you're exhausted, and now you have no energy for love.
Well, I like that you say the journaling part. Historically I have been the exploder in a relationship and journaling and writing down I'll never forget what a therapist told
me one time. I said, sometimes it just comes out and it's stronger than me, and these mean things come out, And she goes, why don't you just try once writing down just awful things that come into your head, of what you would say to your partner, and then fold it into a piece of paper and then put it on the counter and say this is how it's feeling, and it's not very nice, but if you'd like to
read it, you're more than welcome. And they're probably not going to want to read it, and then you're probably not going to even want to put it on the counter, but because you'll realize by the time you wrote it down that it's not something you should have said in the first place. And I did that one time and it really shifted my perspective and something in my brain for that, and I was like, oh my gosh, Okay.
So then I have a question. So, if you are one to avoid conflicts, or you are hiding it or pushing it down out of fear, what should you do to avoid.
That avoid suppressing it? You mean, yes, So I think there's a difference between expressing anger and pain and explaining anger and pain. And so I think people think that the opposite of expressing is suppressing. And you're not trying to get to the opposite of expressing, You're trying to explain how you feel. I'll show you the difference. Expressing is you're an idiot, I hate you, You're ruining my life. Right.
That's expressing. You're just literally throwing it at someone. Explaining is saying when you talk to me like this, this is what I feel, this is what I experience when we deal with our issues in this way. It makes me feel upset, inadequate, whatever it may be. You're explaining how you feel, and now you've shifted the energy because now you can actually have a conversation about what you're talking about, rather than someone just having to catch your
emotions and catch your energy. And so to me, explaining anger, not expressing it allows you to actually not suppress it because if you just go, Okay, I've got to deal with this all in my head, I'm not going to say anything to them that's unhealthy because that's just going to keep burning inside of you. So what I recommend is taking out time, taking a moment, and actually even more than all of that, prepare before you end up in that position. You know you're going to say something
you don't mean. You know you're going to say something hurtful and potentially damaging. Set yourself up before and say, when I'm about to hit that zone, explain how I feel. Don't just express it.
Why do you think that's so hard for people to do? It's when you say it and I hear you say it. Why is it so hard for people to execute that?
Doing that because we haven't practiced, We've never practiced it. All we've ever done, is let whatever we think come straight out of our mouth. And maybe we didn't even think about it. We felt it and we said it, and so it's just because we haven't practiced it. And so it's not something that you should know how to do. It's not something that you must know how to do. It's something we have to train ourselves into a habit
of doing it. Right. So if every time you're in that moment, in that heated moment, you have to learn to cool down, whether it's through prompts physically, you know it's present. Like for example, like one of the things that I often say to people is if you're about to say something, you mean, hold their hands. Right, if you're holding someone's hands, you're like less likely about to say something hurtful and harmful because you think you can
say something harmful because you feel distant from them. But if you feel a bit closer to them, you're going to say it in a much more conscious, intentional way. Another thing I'd add is usually when we argue it's not schedule, And what I mean by that is, if you have to have a difficult or uncomfortable conversation, don't just have it when someone walks through the door, or when someone's about to go through a really important interview.
Have it when you say, by the way, I really need to talk to you about this, can we schedule time? And I think that's what's so important, is that you're not just having arguments because you're uncontrolled. You're actually setting yourself up a success by saying, can we talk about this when you're less stressed. I'm less stressed. Let's find
the right time to have this uncomfortable conversation. The third thing I'm going to say is often when we fight with people, we sit opposite them or stand opposite them, and a lot of research shows that when you're sitting on the same side, you actually feel like you're on the same team. And that's why a lot of leaders inside companies, when they have to give feedback or have tough conversations, they walk with people because now you're walking
in the same direction and that's psychologically impacting you. Rather than sitting across the table from each other against each other, you're walking in the same direction with each other.
I love that. That's actually really incredible advice for me to take away. And also I feel like that's why people find therapy so beneficial. It almost is a scheduled time to talk about feelings that have built up. You don't immediately say it when they walk through the door. You go, oh, I'm going to save this for therapy. We could talk about it with a professional and then by that time you're able to deliver it. So I
love all that advice. That's incredible, and I wanted to turn the beat around here for a minute and talk about people in happy, healthy relationships I believe, such as yourself. How can we keep that spark alive in the relationship and grow with our partner instead of growing apart.
Yeah, I think the way I talk about in the book Four Levels of Intimacy and what I've read when I was sitting with couples, and it's not surprising or when I was looking at the research, the number one activity couples do together is watch television. Now, I'm not against TV. I'm not against watching TV together. I watch
TV and movies with my wife all the time. But the problem is when that's the only thing you do together, which means seven to fourteen hours a week, I spent both of you not connecting, not sharing an experience, not directing your energy towards each other, but at the screen. And so that's one form of connection, but it's quite a low form. Higher than that is experiences and experiments. What I mean by that is do new things together. If you only ever see your partner do the same things.
They do their job, they wash the dishes, they do the laundry. You see your partner do the same daily tasks, it's hard to learn something new about them. Whereas if you go to a painting class, a pottery class, maybe you go for a walk in a place you've never been to before, you take a weekend break that you've never visited before. When you do new things together, you learn new things about each other. That's what keeps the spark alive. I find that we want to find the spark.
But we felt the spark because it was new. But now all we do is old things together. Right, We don't do anything new together, and so how can there be a spark. A higher level than that is to learn together, grow together. You may not like listening to the same podcast or reading the same books, but if you're both doing your own learning, I promise you you'll have more to share with each other and more to learn about each other. I think that we've lost curiosity, Caitlin.
I think we feel we know everything about our partners. I would honestly say to you, I've been with my wife for ten years, and I learned something new about her all the time, like it's ever fresh. And it's not that because I'm amazing at spotting new things. It's because we constantly do new, exciting and thralling things. And the key to that is do things where neither view at the expert. Do things where it's not either of
your passions. Do truly new things to discover new things about each other.
I'm going to take that and run with it because I feel like Jason and I get caught up in this cycle of talking business because we both are super driven and motivated, and we are so passionate about what we do that at the end of the night, we're not doing something like you said, like that isn't that you're not the best at We're not taking that time to We literally are like we're tired, Let's throw on a show or let's talk about business, because that's something
we both enjoy talking about. So I really appreciate that feedback because I think that's really helpful. And lastly, you talk about balancing work, love and life without losing yourself. How do you continue to give love to your partner yourself. Some people have kids and your bucket might feel a little bit empty while you still have so much going on, Like, how do you figure out how to keep everybody's buckets a little full?
I think is that we try and balance everything perfectly all the time. And you know, Arianna Huffington once said, you can have it all, just not all at the same time. And I love that idea because there are different phases and stages to life. That's why when you're single, you're meant to fill yourself up so that when you get into a relationship you can fill each other up. And then when you have kids, you fill the kids up,
and then you refill yourselves again. And so the way I break it down is there's a different priority at different stages. That doesn't mean you're not filling yourself up and filling other people up at the same time, but you recognize that in this season, I need to focus more on the kids. In this season, I need to focus more on myself. And the only way you do it is by not putting pressure on yourself to do
it all. You give yourself brace, you allow yourself to make mistakes, You recognize you're a flawed, normal, fallible human who doesn't get everything right all the time, and that you try your best. As simple as that sounds, I find that people know when you're trying your best. People know when you're consciously thinking of them. To be honest, sometimes I'll say to my wife, Hey, I know you've
been struggling with this. How can I help you? And her response is, actually, I've got it covered, but I'm just thankfully thought of. Half the time, our partners just want to feel seen, heard and understood. They don't need you to do anything drastic. They don't need you to take them on the vacation or take them on the date night. They just want to feel seen, heard and understood.
And when they don't feel seen, heard and understood, that's when they want the vacation, and that's when they want the anniversary party, and that's when they want the birthday party, because those are all ways of patching up all of the other issues that they feel.
Yeah, so true. I mean everybody say I'm like, yes, yes.
I'm glad. It's resonating. I really hope it resonates with your amazing audience and your community, because I'm just trying to speak in real terms and try and speak as true fully and openly as I can.
No it will. I mean, you can think about that book is there's some parts I definitely disagree with, but the women men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Like, it's just it's gone back so many years where it's people are wired a certain way and it's just not the same as it was. However long ago that was,
you know what I mean. So it's it's we're all trying to evolve and grow and change and stay with the times, and I feel like everything right now is it's not the same as it was in the cavemen days where men are from Mars and women are from Venus. It's still maybe a little bit wired that way, but we have to grow as.
We have to so, and our lives have changed, right, Work, work schedules have changed, work responsibilities have changed, so we can't keep applying that advice to these modern lives that we live.
Yeah, I completely agree. I just I am so grateful for you and I loved having you on my podcast, and I know you are just so busy, and I just can't tell you how grateful I am that you spent some time with today. And I just know how much this will mean, how much of it into me personally, and how much it will mean to my listeners as well. And I want to like shout this book from the rooftops and have everybody get it because I love the dits for everybody, and I love what you say and
you've helped me more than you know. So thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Well, Kaitlyn. I want to say thank you to you. I also want to say thank you to everyone who's been listening and watching and everyone who orders the book. Thank you so much. It means the world to me. I poured my heart into this book for two years and so I deeply value anyone who takes a moment
to read it. And I also want to send you away with a little intention, a little meditation, just to thank you, just to wish you well on this journey you're off too, for the next six days, and I really hope that it's a transformative, deeply moving and impactful process for you. And I hope that when you come out of it, you have new lessons, new wisdom, new insight that you're able to line your life and share love, share joy, and share your spirit with everyone in your life.
So I just wanted to put that intention out there for you and sending you so much love and positive energy through this journey.
Thank you so much. I know you're going on a whole live tour when I get back, so I'm sure we will cross paths, and even if it's DMS, because I want to.
I hope you will come and see me. Well, yeah, I hope you will come and see the show. That'd be awesome.
I would love to. Is there a place where people can find your book, the dates you're going on to tour, everywhere that everyone can find you.
Yeah, the book can be ordered from eight Rules of Love dot com, same as the title Eight Rules of Love dot com, and the tour is at Jshetty tour dot com and all the dates there, whether you're in the US or international, And so Jshetty tour dot com.
Good luck with your full tour.
Er so much.
You're just helping so many people and opening people's eyes and minds, and it's it's really incredible, and I just again, thank you for that, and thank you for chatting with me today, Caitlin.
It was so fun talking to you and we will keep in touch. And again, thank you so much. I'm so grateful and all the best. I have a great six days. Thank you so much for listening to on Purpose. It means the world to me. I am so excited to be sharing these episodes with you. I am pumped and I cannot wait for the next one. We're often told that we've got to focus on ourselves and that we can't look to others to make us happy. While that's in many ways true, there is a path to
contentment that involves others without relying on them. Don't worry, I'll explain. The next seven minutes are about happiness and how you can find yours by helping others find theirs. I'm Jay Sheddy. Welcome to the Daily Jay. Now, I'd like to pause here as always and get entered with three conscious breaths, deep breath in and a slow breath out, connecting with your body and releasing tension, connecting with your
mind and tapping in. There's a brilliant story about a teacher who hands each of her students a balloon and has them write their name on it with a marker. The teacher holds up a timer and tells the students, on the account of three, I'm going to have you all throw your balloons up in the air, and you'll have two minutes to find the one with your name. The teacher counts to three, and the students are off racing around the room. They're tripping over one another, wildly batting
the balloons in their frantic search. It's mayhem. At the end of the two minutes, the teacher instructs everyone to freeze. She asks who found their balloon. Only a few hands go up. Okay, The teacher says, we're going to do it again, but now I want you to pick up whichever balloon is closest to you and return it to its owner. This time, as the clock runs out, everyone has their balloon back and something else is different too. Instead of looking harried and stressed, the students are smiling
and laughing. The teacher explains that happiness is like those balloons. If we're only focused on our own happiness, we have a worse chance of actually locating it. But if we all share happiness wherever we can, we'll find our own as well. Now, there's nothing wrong with looking for your own happiness. That's normal, it's healthy, and after all, we don't want to let others and what they do or
don't do, dictate the quality of our lives. But we can become so fixated on our search for contentment that we get anxious and stressed. We feel like trying to find joy is like looking for a needle in a haystack. In reality, happiness is all around us. It just might not be ours. Sometimes it's better to simply pick up
someone else's balloon and hand it to them. The reality is that we are inter dependent, and while we shouldn't expect others to give us our balloons, we can trust that at some point our goodwill might come back around. We can also focus on the joy that giving joy gives you. In the words of father Richard Raw, the only way to hang on to joy is to share it. So what does it look like to hand someone there happiness?
You've probably already done it without realizing. It can be as easy as telling someone how much you appreciate them or thanking them for a job well done. Simple gestures like these don't just brighten a person's day, they also generate shared joy. I know you know that it feels good to make someone smile, and if you remain present in that shared joy, it's a surefire way to boost your own happiness too. When it comes down to it,
we do need to care for ourselves. But at the same time, we're all in it together figuring out this thing called life, and we should all hand out happiness when we can. And now, as our time today winds down, we can start to spread the love in our meditation. So get comfortable wherever you are, relaxing your body, easing tension. If you'd like, you can put one hand on your stomach to feel the rise and fall of your breath, the other hand on your chest to connect with your
source of love and kindness. See if you can access any feelings of warmth, generosity, compassion, and let those feelings flow out of you and into the world. You can even bring to mind a loved one or a friend, someone who could use a little support or a pick me up, and send them your well wishes. May you be happy. And now let's open this up. Think about what you can do today to give someone else their balloon.
How a might to uplift you as well. Big picture, can you consider other people's happiness alongside the search for your own. I wish you a beautiful day full of joy and light, and I can't wait to see you tomorrow