The Roadblocks Between You and Love

in relationships out of fear. Dare thank you? And Daddy's relationship started with lust. I do think that was an entry point. You've been married four times game, I don't think any one of them accepted me for who I was. I've heard this, and I swear I hate it. When your man asked for sex, you better give it to him all he's gonna go somewhere else. Let Later we sit down with j a former monk and a global phenomenon whose inspirational videos have been viewed over four billion times.

I probably said I love you a few too many times when it wasn't real. I had a lot of people. And then we'll meet his wife, Roddy, as they share their secrets for keeping love strong. I just think you guys are the prettiest couple. I say this is an interesting red table because this particular red table has been inspired by all the conversations we've been having in the house about love. Love is a subject that we'll not

have been talking about actually trade too. Yeah, what what's like your biggest question right now in regards to love? I would have basically everything, But I would have to say it can get really confusing because you know, you can think that you love somebody and then now you're feeling like, oh, now I want to control this person. Also, people always people it's this love has is a weird thing of like you have to do certain things after a certain way, treat me a certain way to unconditional

love exactly. But that's how most people think about you've been married four times a game. Do you think that this is the first marriage that you have had that

you feel that you're in more alignment? Absolutely with your partner? Absolutely, I see the error in my you know, my other marriages, Like I remember my second husband describing me as a diamond in the rough well about me all the time, and I thought that that was so sweet at the time, and I and I thought it was, but it was really an indication that I wasn't good enough right because he had to polish me up. Oh, you know, I didn't even see it that and bring out the shine.

With my third husband, he wanted me to be somebody else. I think he saw me and felt like, oh, I can groom this person and mold her into what I really want her to be. And so I don't think either one of them really accepted me for who I was at the core. And I think just in the space that I'm in right now, because you know, I'm so happy right now. You know, I'm in this relationship with my husband for seven years. We're coming up on

our third year anniversaries. So what is it specifically with with your relationship with Rodney that makes you feel I just loved more or feel so differently. Yeah, I just feel like he knows me, you know, and accepts me and accepts me as I am. And I just feel like he is so patient with me because I have a lot of issues. I really do. One of the things that I learned about love is allowance and that you can't try to shame someone, molds someone, blame someone

into being what they should be for you. It's actually quite unlovingly and it's not for me to try to beat you down and force you into you being something for me. If I have a friend that's a cat, I'm not going to ask you to be a dog, right right right, you know, because there's one thing in growing, and then there's one thing and just asking somebody to just be something and change and be something that they're just not. And guess what, don't nobody need to grow

for you? You grow? Because guess what if you grow in you don't need nobody to do nothing for you. It's true, Boom. The one thing that I have been learning about love is that ego has no place in regards to learning how to love. That I've gotten very place whatsoever. Evaluate all of my relationships and dissolving all the ego that's entangled in all of them, and just realizing that a lot of my relationships have been steeped

more in ego than in love. And so now the challenge for me is and has been, just dissolving all that ego and being able to have more allowance and people aren't here for me. I'm not entitled to anybody's kindness. I'm not entitled to anyone's commitment. I'm not entitled to anything from anyone, and that anything that anyone gives me is someone decides to love me, someone decides to befriend me. It's a gift. It is not an entitlement. And I think that I've gone into a lot of my relationships

feeling deeply entitled. Oh God, yes, and I don't but that that that that's that's the tricky and sidious part to the ego. And this is gonna sound crazy, but if my love being somebody's gonna be based on how they treat me, ain't gonna be too many people that I love, Let's say, real talk, because and vice versa. I've committed some acts and have done some very unloving things to people that I love because of my fear and my ego. Because once my ego kicks in, we

in trouble. Because that Jada baby, she ain't cute and she's a vicious one and she's mean. Yeah the far far so. Yeah, that's real talk. Even in my pain, I've had to learn to be more open, be more vulnerable, not go to the space of ego and lay it down. You know, you gotta lay it down. Yeah. Well, and I had a conversation recently that love and fee here are fraternal twins. Any time you're trying to love on a deep level, you're gonna come up against the vicious

face of fear. Okay, somebody hurts you. First thing, your friends said, girl, leave him right right right, right right right? Why are you even dealing with that? They don't care about the details. He hurt you, he did, what she did? What time to go? It's all steeped and fear. What people are gonna think about you, What people are gonna say, what it says, Is it gonna happen again? All the messaging that is being brought up that you know makes you feel like you're not worthy what it says about you,

what you know? And then you have other women, You have even therapists that will tell you take care of your man first. You have therapists tell you listen, I've heard this, and I swear I hate it when I hear it. When your man asked for sex, you better give it to him. All he's gonna go somewhere else, so let him what it. What it makes you feel about yourself? All fear? Okay, So then the ego kicks in, and then the ego goes, oh, we're about to take care it is she gonna feel it or he's gonna

feel it. We will be angry, but we're not gonna hurt. I always turn it into comedy, and people think I'm so mean. Comedy. Yeah, I'd rather laugh about it then be angry or cry about it. I've learned to just cry. That's how I cope. I would just rather laugh than start crying or be like f you like, I just rather be like, Oh, you're a comedian, totally get it. That's fun. You see. Sometimes we have our coping mechanism, and that doesn't necessarily mean that that coping mechanism is true. Yeah,

it's just the way. But as the mask of I'm gonna make this funny, you're ego. That's how your ego works. The ego comes in and it goes, oh, no, they're a comedian. Yeah, we're gonna make this funny, so laugh. Your father does the same thing. It's a nervous thing, but the ego creates all these defense mechanisms so we don't have to feel. What is that starts falling asleep? He'll fall asleep that's his He'll be like, la, I'm sorry, it's just a little tired today. Yeah, and until we're

like I, ego, guess what. I'm ready to actually there to handle what is in front of me, and I know that the hurt won't kill me exactly. The question is why are you in romantic relationships? Why do you seek them out? Let me tell you the tricky part about it. Okay, so you enter into a relationship based on he looks good, lustful of practice. Right, everybody wants to love how you want, all those things that made

you feel like you were the only one. You used to make me feel like this, and we used to do this. But you are still trying to grasp a feeling or a part of time in your life that doesn't exist. Do you think you and Daddy's relationship started with lust or yeah, you know it's so funny. I've really been looking at that. So there's that. Let's bring ja outright. Meet j Shetty, who, if you can believe it, not long ago, was a monk. Now he's an international phenomenon.

His viral videos on wisdom have reached billions, yes, billions, and its massive following, including many famous faces flock to his advice or love and relationships. Well, I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be at the table. Can we just talk a little bit of how you became a monk. I was eighteen years old, to same age as you believe, and I was just doing what every eighteen year old

in London did. I was going out, had great friends, we were traveling, and so I'd go and he'd here, ceo celebrities, influences speak every single week. I'd met people who are beautiful. I've met people who are famous, but I don't know if i'd met anyone who was really happy. And then once I found out a monk was going, so I went there and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was experiencing happiness through this monk, and so I was just drawn to it.

So I went up to him and networked like you do with someone anyway. I don't know your network with the monk, but I did, and I was just like, hey, I love your energy, Like, how do I get more of this? Right? So, in your journey, what have you found out about love? I think the beautiful thing that we're all doing here is recognizing that there is no

just one past. So I started dating when I was fourteen, and from fourteen to twenty two I had multiple relationships, tons of girlfriends, short term, long term, pretty much everything, which is totally normal. I probably said I love you a few too many times when it wasn't real or I didn't really know what I meant. I probably hurt a lot of people in the process. Actually I know

I did. I heard a lot of people. And so when it came to being a monk, a lot of that for me was unpacking all of that, and I started to look at my beliefs around love and relationships and I realized so many of them were built by movies, music, and media. I remember watching a movie and just think like, oh, I have to have a girlfriend, and I was like twelve years old or something thing, and I was just like, no, I need to have a girl in my life because

that looked cool or whatever it was. And so then when I was a monk, I was sitting there and one of the biggest things I made a mistake before as well was I think I used to do nice things for women because it made me feel better about myself. So I would do the most luxurious date, like I take them to the nicest place I'd show up, and the nicest car and the nicest clothes. I give the gift. And I don't know if I was genuinely doing it

for them or actually just doing it for me. So they'd be like, Jay, you're amazing, Like you're the guy when you become a monk and you like I shaved my hair off, you wear robes. It's like no one's impressed anymore, you know, it's like there's no one giving you that external validation anymore because you're almost, you know, just totally different. You're stripped down exactly, that's what I wor, Yeah,

you're stripped down. And so for me, that gave me the silence and the space to go inward without having the distraction or validation or self work from another mirror of anywhere else. And I had to do it for me because now there was no one there to give me that right. The monks were not going to do that.

So you were celibate for those three years. Yes, not only was it, the celibacy was like working through all of those all of this and going where does this belief come from And I was like, oh, this belief comes from a movie. Okay, is that really important to me? Right? No, it isn't. It was just important because I watched that movie and my friends like that movie, and just going through that process of just taking stuff out, weeding it out, taking out the weeds. What my beliefs of love were.

So what have you discovered? I know it's so hard for that one definition. I can't even wrap my mind well, you know, because the focus for me and defining love just has gotten deeper and deeper and deeper over the years because I do believe that it's peeling back the layers. It's like an onion for me. My favorite definition I can say that I think the most accessible as well,

is that love is a verb. It's not a noun, absolutely, and and that to me takes away a lot of the misconceptions because people experience abuse but then their partner says I love you, Or people experience violence or even verbal abuse and then people say I love you. But if you know that love is a verb not a noun, you start to start making the right decision. You can start figure out does someone really mean it? Are they

showing it and are you showing it too? Like love is a verb for you too, right, Like, how are you displaying this? How are you demonstrates me? And this is one of the biggest things that I've definitely learned and I think in my relationships and people have probably learned dating me, is that just when someone shows you their true colors, don't try to repaint them, right, Like, that's the biggest issue. We're trying to upgrade people to be our perception and we call it love. I love you,

So this is why I'm doing this. Wow, what are some points to you that you could give people to help know when you're in an ego state when it comes to being in a love relationship, I feel like there's so much of our identity, so much of our egos that are steeped in our relationships, that we need our partners to feed our egos not a hat. Absolutely yeah, And I think it's a hard one. The ego feels happy when you get lots of people saying nice things

about it. You get lots of people agreeing with you, even if you don't agree with yourself exactly. Right, Like, when we're getting ready, we ask a million people, how do I look right, right, But we didn't ask ourselves how do we look? How do I look for myself? But like, do I feel confident in this? Do I feel happy in this? Do I feel comfortable in this? But we asked everyone else just asking yourself, like building up your own opinion of yourself, right, That's that's when

you start removing ego. And I think also ego plays its tricks when we're building your validation shin based on others faces. That's the other floors. So you're taking others floors and standing on top of them to feel higher. And you know, that's a real insidious act that happens a lot in intimate relationships. It's like I know more

than you. And that's one of the biggest challenges too, with comparison with love, especially like I have so many friends will come up to and be like, oh, did you hear so and so, like they were then like they did in three months they got married, like they love each other right, or like, oh, I've been with someone for ten years and he hasn't proposed he or she hasn't done this year. And it's that comparison complexes everything because again you're going outside of yourself to mirror

on to your own life and other people's relationships. Exactly. Simplifying starts with removing comparison from our lives. When we just move out comparison, it naturally simplifies where we're at, because now where the validators of ourselves and where we're moving and where we're going are eager feeds off of talking bad about others because we're basing our happiness on someone else's. Yeah, that low point which just feels so dead when I talk about it, just doesn't feel like

clean up. It's just so dark. Yeah, but that's that's our ego. So I think we have to stop our ego in these moments. It's not necessarily even with our partner. Yeah, right, we stick with our partner and we say, oh, did you see, like we're so much better than them, like did you see did you see them at the table, like they didn't even have to communicate? And again like you you as your your partnership is built on someone else's demise. Yes, Comparative superiority, Yes, yes, that's that's the

is the problem. Comparative superiority that's the name for right there, that's it, and we all you know, we've all we'll do it. Understand. Gossiping is the worst all of it. That was something that we all struggle with. Your wife is here, Yes, we want to bring her out. Jane's beautiful wife. Riddy met the meditation class where he was teaching, but he'd already committed to becoming a monk. Three years later, when Jay left monkhood, he remembered Roddy almost instantly. They

fell in love and married. Now they're sharing their secrets of how they keep their love strong. I just think you guys are the prettiest couple of so much beauty. I have one question for you, Rody. I just want to know if the fact that Jay was a monk was that off putting for you at all, because I almost feel like it's like, oh my god, he's so spiritual.

I'll never be able to live up to that. I actually was at a stage when I was really seeking spirituality, and so for me, I was like, Wow, this person has become a monk and he has so much wisdom, And for me it was a more of an attraction point. I was like, Wow, he's just a spiritual person living a normal life but with great integrity and spiritual values. Who was the first one who said I love you? Um, oh,

that's I think it's probably me. I'm guessing we kind of went from like you to love you in like a week. We were quitter, Yeah, it was very very quick. And then we were like we were getting married. We never want to be with each other and we know

we're going to get married. Yeah, And I think, and I think a lot, and that's what I was doing earlier, like you have, you have lasted, you have love, and then sometimes we all come back to learning, right, which is actually the in between steps, And so I think we did that too. Like we fell in love, we knew we were committed, we loved each other, but then came the learning. But it wasn't like it was just there when we got married and we started living together

in classes, and you won't skip it. You can't skip the learning, right, So you either do it up front or you do it after, but you can't skip that step, right. And I knew I was confident that I loved her because of my previous experiences, because of having lived as a monk and becoming really aware of what I was looking for in a partner and what I believe my partner would stand for and be for me. J What does she do that makes you feel the most love?

I think one of the biggest ones, and I'm going to say because it's it's unique, is that she makes me feel like she's really secure with me, but also not to have her pick holes and find faults all the time. And I think that's really special for me because it makes me want to be even better, Like it motivates me, encourages me. Yeah, it empowers me to feel stronger and better and want to live up to that. What is it that Jade does that makes you feel loved?

He's so emotionally available From the beginning when I was completely shut off, I was not used to being emotionally available at all, and he no matter how hard I was in my exterior, he was just constantly emotionally available.

And still we've been married for two and half year, three years, we've been married for three years, and still every single day he's very expressive of how he feels, whether it's like just love yous or thank you's, And I think just those daily things on a regular basis, just letting that person know where you're at and how you're feeling, or your gratitude, like will be falling a sleeper, but I'm so grateful for that what you did today.

The the idea of emotional availability, I think is so important and so strong, and I feel like there's always going to be one partner that might have more availability, and I think having at least one person like that it kind of helps you the other person open up and break through as well. And it doesn't mean that you have to be this romantic, you know, love letter

type person, because I'm not like that. But I also think there's such a good thing about having a filter of love that comes that you're speaking through blur things out. It's just because we haven't, we haven't taken the time out of love for that person to filter it because you're still because you're like, I've got to get like I need to win this exactly. And so actually it's me and yeah, I mean I'm not I'm all day and this is me learning like this isn't I haven't

got this down at all. But I just think that is what it takes. It's like, Okay, I love whoever we are speaking to you, whether it's your partner or anybody else. In an argument, it's like, wait, do we want to give out a feeling of hate to that person? Is like what energy are we carrying with our words? And I think also just becoming really aware of how people react to disagreements, we react totally differently. Yeah, I want to talk it out, and she wants to be quiet,

like she doesn't enjoy diving. So I'm like, let's go. I was like, let's it's very intimidating through some people. I just want to collect my thoughts and I want to speak to you properly, but I need a moment to get over me being upset before I speak to you and me being angry before I speak to you. I'm not judgingab do that more so, how do you

reconcile that difference? When we first started seeing those disagreements arising, and I remember saying to I said, you have to realize this when we are fighting, when we're getting there, it's not me versus you, it's us versus the problem, right, Like, it's not me against you. You have to see that

we're a team. It's us against the problem. And if we don't see that we're a team, whether it's a problem, a person, a situation that we're versus, then we're going to lose every time together because you're winning and me losing is still a loss to us the same team, but you're trying to have a winner and a loser. So we either win together or lose together. Like, I'm a competitive person, I love winning, but I realized that in your relationship you've got to put winning together as

the priority. I love winning, I love winning, but you can still win. Do you hear? That's a real that's a real thing. And for us competitive women, let's listen to this. Yeah, oh that's so huge. Oh man, this is great. Let's bring out the fifth ball questions. Yeah, their random, These are random. So you guys, are our guests? Do you believe in love at first sight? I think this is I'm going to have to say, no, it's impossible to love someone. Yeah exactly. I feel like when

you see someone you feel you love them. It comes down to you to something that's physical, financial, mental, emotional, it's really spiritual or deeper. So it's like physical, like I want them, like they look, they look amazing. Financial, I like what they have, right, I like the things they have. And then it's mental it's like, oh I like the way he or she thinks that they blow my mind, But that doesn't mean you love them. You're

just like an aspect of them. And then it's like emotional like, oh, I think they could feel that gap in my life, like I need them, and so I feel like that's what we're feeling. That's what I don't believe in love at first sight, because what we're really experiencing is not love. It's either last, it's without learning. It's the first thought that comes to your mind about that person. So to me, yeah, so I don't believe

in love at first sight. I'm sorry, sorry to break any heart, like the alrighty, let's see what we have here, Willow. What's the one thing about love that scares you? The one thing about love that scares me is being tricked into thinking that you need it from someone else. That's the scariest thing I see is people getting tricked into thinking that, oh, my love comes from this source, this person,

like this is where I get all my love. So it's almost like a dependency depend much too much pressure exactly because no one's going to live up to that. That's a really valid no one's going to live up to that pressure exactly. And if you think it's all about them, that means when they disappear, then be happy. And then people say I'm happy anymore. Yeah, that's such a powerful point. That's such a that's the really garry part. What's the number one thing that you want me to

know about love? I would say my hope for you is to know that there's a source far higher than any of this exactly, that has the most unconditional love, and that this becomes your reflection. Yes, you know. And I feel like as you grow and as you develop this relationship here that everything else will fall into place. Yamn. We never had these conversations, but we're having them now.

I'm so grateful to you three. I just feel like the fact that you're having this conversation, it's affecting so many, so many people. Table talk all right, nice, alright for Instagram? So Willow you know how to do the swipe up takes? We are here with Jay and his wit Heay come to the Red Table to talk about what is up.

Swipe up Hey, Red Table Talk family. Head to our Red Table Talk Facebook watch show page, Join the conversation and become a part of Red Table Talk to join the red table Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.