Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 65 Justin and Emily Baldoni

Episode Date: May 16, 2021

This week on Couple Things, we got to chat with Justin and Emily Baldoni. You may be familiar with Justin from the hit show "Jane the Virgin", but he's gone on to direct and produce movies and he also just released a brand new book. The book is called "Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity", so we dove into the topic of masculinity along with so many other subjects. Here are a few other topics that we cover: Defining Masculinity Their proposal Putting in the hard work in relationships Is there “the one?" Faith and spirituality Self-reflection and criticism Keeping your marriage healthy and growing Relationship advice for their kids Here are a few places that you can learn more about Justin and Emily: Check out Justin's Book ▶ https://www.amazon.com/Man-Enough-Undefining-My-Masculinity/dp/0063055597 Justin's TED Talk ▶ https://www.ted.com/talks/justin_baldoni_why_i_m_done_trying_to_be_man_enough?language=en Justin's Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/justinbaldoni/?hl=en Emily's Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/emilybaldoni/?hl=en Emily's Company Amma ▶ https://www.instagram.com/weareamma/?hl=en If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething... And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. We're supported by the following companies that we love! Check them out below: Verb ▶ Receive 30% off Verb’s best-selling bundles! This is a great way to try their most delicious flavors. Go to https://www.verbenergy.com/EASTFAM or use code EASTFAM at checkout to claim this deal. This discount is only valid for their bundles so try them out! Cord Blood Registry ▶ Harness the possibilities by going to https://www.cordblood.com right now. Use code CPLE to get $500 dollars off the collection and a free preservation kit. Once again, that code is CPLE. Go to https://www.cordblood.com and get your free preservation kit today. FAN MAIL ADDRESS: Shawn and Andrew East 750 N San Vicente Blvd., East Tower, 11th Floor, Los Angles, CA 90069 Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson... Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson​... Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson​​... Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast​​​​​​ Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast​... Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast​​... Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from winners, I started wondering. Is every fabulous item I see from winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. Are those from winners? Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings? Did she pay full price? Or that leather tote?

Or that cashmere sweater? Or those knee-high boots? That dress, that jacket, those shoes. Is anyone paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners, find fabulous for less. Why do we get into cold water?

We get into cold water because it sucks, but we know it's going to benefit us in the long run. And it's the same thing with these subjects and these conversations. We've got to dive into that cold plunge, get uncomfortable, talk about this shit, so that we can all be freed from it. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. What's Sean and Andrew? A podcast all about couples. And the things they go through.

Today we have the wonderful Justin and Emily Belgrade. Don't you. That's right. What a pleasure it was to sit down with these two. We got pretty deep with them, babe. We did. Right out the gate. We did. I really enjoyed our conversation. It's fun because we have a lot of mutual friends, but this was our first time meeting Justin and Emily. And the reason for our discussion was Justin's new book called Man Enough, Undefining My Masculinity, just came out. And it's a really interesting book. We have a lot of conversations relevant to this. What was the inspiration behind this? If you are familiar with Justin, he is kind of a fan favorite. from the show, Jane the Virgin. He has also gone on to direct movies like clouds, which is famous for bringing you to tears and also five feet apart. Anyway, Justin has a stellar career and he's really passionate about this subject of kind of evaluating what it means to be a man. He's given several viral TED talks on it. He has a lot of YouTube series about this. And that's the inspiration for this book. So I really enjoyed our discussion. We talk much about this and also religion.

We really got into it. I think one of my favorite parts about this conversation, with Emily and Justin was talking about how their relationship came to be and how difficult it was from the very beginning and kind of their perspectives and viewpoints on why relationships should be difficult and the beauty that can come from it. Yeah, they had some really unique wisdom and insight and I appreciated them taking the time. We definitely pushed the time limit with them. We did. We ran it right up to the last minute. But anyway, if you want to find out more about Justin and Emily and what they're up to, including Justin's new book. We'll link that as well as some of his TED Talks as well.

Please check them out. And before we jump into it, if you haven't yet, please subscribe to the show and give it a rating on whatever platform. We really appreciate it and love hearing your feedback. Ready to roll into it? I'm ready. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Justin and Emily, true pleasure to have you on the show. I got to say, we've been binge watching your episode that you did with people on YouTube, your house tour. And I want to ask, do we hit the infrared bed this morning or is that yet to come? You mean that juvite thing? Yeah, the juvite. No, this morning was like pressed early. And if I would have done it, I would have woken her up.

She would have thought that she was being abducted by aliens. It is so bright. Oh, my gosh. It terrifies the neighbors. We're under construction right now. We moved to the country. We're up here in Ohio. And so we haven't built our master bedroom yet.

So we're building a section of the closet where we can hide the juvites so that doesn't bother the other person. Awesome. Or our neighbors who think that we're into some weird, freaky stuff, I have a feeling. They're like our whole house close. Oh, man, I got to say, I feel like you and I would vibe pretty well. I am like a tech geek or like smart home. Any cool gadget that you can have in your house, dude, I'm looking at the toilet, your cold plunge bath.

I want to buy it all. I need it now. I got you, man. You got to come up and I'll take you on a tour. I'm just the biohack geek, man. I love it. The challenge is you've got to have the time to do it. Yeah.

It's not so meaningless unless you actually use it. Yeah. That was one of the first things, Andrew was like, did you see the cold plunge? Did you see the infrared? I was like, oh, my gosh. You could dial in the temperature of your shower to the exact degree. Wow. I would love that.

I would love that. That's pretty cool. Yeah. We don't have it here at this house, but that's pretty cool. Yeah. Cold showers are freezing, though, up here. Yeah, the cold showers are like a cold plunge. Well, it's nice to meet you guys.

So nice to meet you guys. Thank you for having you. Yes. congratulations is in order. I want to reiterate, Justin, on your new book, this right here, man enough. I'm honestly pumped about this because I feel like this is extremely needed. So if you wouldn't mind, we usually start off a little differently, but I would love to kind of have you talk about your book starting out the gate here real quick. Yeah, thanks. First of all, I'm excited that you want to read it because it's really written for men. It's a love letter to

men. And man enough, undefining my masculinity is really kind of a man. It's kind of a man. meditation on what it means to be a man today from my experience as like a straight, white, cisgender dude. And what I'm looking to do in the book is to invite men into their stories by, like, showing the raw brutalness of mine. So I get deep and gnarly and talk about stuff that we don't normally talk about as men, a lot of early experiences, sexual experiences, ways that masculinity as a whole has not just hurt me, but it caused me to hurt people that I love.

And what I'm asking that we do is we really start to ask why, to question the system, to question what it even means to be a man, what our socialization has been, why we act the way that we do, why we engage in certain behaviors, why we interrupt the women in our life, why we take up more space, which is I'm trying not to do as I'm sitting here next to my wife, with my leg, with my leg spread over. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why we, why we, why we, why we, why we, why we, why we cut ourselves off from our emotions. Why it's not okay to cry? Why we use the language that we use so that we can unlock our potential to become not just good men, but good humans and more

happy, healthy, loving, kind, empathetic humans. That's how we change the world. Well, it's powerful. The titles are brave enough, big enough, smart enough, confident enough, privileged enough, successful enough, sexy enough, loved enough, and dad enough. And I got to say, I got the book, we turned directly to the sexy enough because I was like, I want to, yeah, yeah, I need to check this out. But it was, it was actually powerful. I mean, talk about like a lot of different topics, including porn, including the average size of a erect penis. And it's like, you kind of, you really do just get right after it, which it's funny in a society where, you know, we're used to seeing penis enlargement ads and all these different billboards and things you could find at your local grocery store

that I was reading these facts and I felt like a little uncomfortable, which is ironic in that sense because of we've kind of, yeah, it's, we've been brainwashed to like almost expect the other side of things as opposed to what the truth actually is. So it's powerful. Yeah, I'm with them. It's, it says a lot that's after you turn to, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's important and it's a cold plunge. Please go ahead. No, no. I was just going to say I love everything about this. I can't wait to read it. We're getting ready to have a son. But I feel like there's so much of that that's been depicted for women, like for so many years that nobody's really covered the guy's side. And it's so important. And it's a conversation that needs to be had. Yeah, it's also because if you think

about it, women have had to have this conversation because women are the oppressed in this situation. You're the objectified, sexualized party here, and we're the ones doing it to you. So you've had to, for the sake of your sanity and mental health and for community, be the ones that are engaging and starting these conversations and saying, this is not okay. It's not okay that you're doing this to me. It's about okay that I am objectified or sexualized. Or as Emily shared early on, like having boys comment on her body before she even knew what

anything was like i mean this is the culture that we're all raised in so so now what i'm just trying to do is say well it's kind of a chicken or the egg situation we wouldn't be doing it to women if we didn't start with ourselves and and as my dear friend liz plank says she has a book for the love of men your liberation as a woman is tied to my liberation as a man and so that's the purpose of this book is like as men we got to start asking these questions and going deep and unlocking these hidden truths, these caboo subjects and topics that make it uncomfortable for us to talk about things like body image or body dysmorphia or sex or porn or all of these things. Because the longer that we don't jump into cold plunge, the more we're just going to suffer.

What do I kind of call it the cold plunge, right? Just bringing it back to, like, you were fascinated about my cold plunge. Why do we get into cold water? We get into cold water because it sucks, but we know it's going to benefit us in the long run. We get in the cold water because it's a mental endurance exercise to know that. we can sit in freezing cold water despite the discomfort when we get out of it there's bliss and there's joy our endorphins are rushing and we're happy and it's the same thing with these subjects and these conversations we got to dive into that cold plunge get uncomfortable talk about this shit

so that we can all be freed from it yeah well i'm glad you said that because i i could see potentially or someone looking at this and say well what are you trying to do here like make me feel guilty as a white, you know, straight male for something I'm not in charge of. But really, the goal is to have honest conversations so that we can all be better as a result. And in your TED talk, Justin, you talk about, you know, the analogy of the bird with, bird has two wings. And it can only fly. The quote from the Baha faith, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Share that if you don't mind. And the Bahaifah says that humanity can be likened to a bird. On one wing is female and the other wing is male and it's not until those wings are equivalent in strength that the bird can fly and at the

moment my words our words are that the bird is grounded we're not lying yet we're not able we can't even take flight we're not even because the wings aren't equivalent of strength yeah it is powerful and you mentioned there as well that how can we prevent the situation where there has to be millions of females abused or neglected and then them have to stand up and say me too How can we prevent that from having to happen again? But it's been cool, too, on that note, to see you and your relationship with your wife, Emily, which has been documented, the engagement? My gosh, dude.

What the heck, man? How many dances do you have to learn for that proposal, dude? Well, yeah, we did a few. That was just a big, like, uh, very ambitious. But that was, but that was also analogous to our dating story. Yeah, it was. I was loving her in the way. way that I wanted to be loved.

Yeah. And I mean, the proposal video was him making fun of how he loves to just do everything so grand. Everything is big. Everything is, like it has that wow effect. And that's the opposite of who I am. I like the smaller, intimate moments. You know, I don't need the fireworks. So that was him kind of making fun of what he loves to do and how he loves to express his love.

And then ending up with giving me something that that is. is more, that is closer to my heart, you know, an intimate moment with us and our family. And it was my journey of failing through it all because that's what our dating life was like. You were failing with each big surprise. Yeah, it was a failure. Because every time I would, and I write about this in the book, you know, I would do these grand gestures that would just fail miserably. I feel that. And nobody ever got to see me fail at them because it was just this painful, awkward, terrible,

like uncomfortable dating experience. And so when I came down to propose, I'm like, all right, the way to do this for me is I always wanted to do a big, grand gesture proposal. I had thought about that before I even thought about the woman that I was going to be with. So now I found the woman and she doesn't want that. He doesn't want that. And so I did all these grand things and I suck at them and I fail at them and I'm making fun of myself to get to where we really needed to be, which was I got to love her for her and the way she wants to be loved, not the way that I. want to love her. To backtrack a little bit

the way we usually start out the podcast, I'm very curious how you guys met and how the whole dating process started. It's funny. You put it on our website. You should tell that story. Our marriage website. Yeah, so it's hard to keep this short.

We're going to try to jump in. So he did a movie in Costa Rica in like 2007. seven. It was a really bad movie. I think there was some sort of production company that bought it. They thought it was going to be great. And then it turned out to be a huge failure. And then they decided to do some reshoots of that movie to kind of fix it, to save it. And then the guy behind the movie was like, no, I'm just going to raise more money and shoot the movie all over again. He wanted Justin to be a part of that second version of the same movie. He said, no, because experience had been so bad.

I was cast in the second movie. Had he said yes, we would have played boyfriend girlfriend in that second movie. Wow. He didn't. I started dating actually the guy who did play my boyfriend. She has a type. I have a type.

And then so that's how we met. I think we met at the screening of my version of the movie. I was just leaving the party and you were entering the party. With that dude. With that dude and you showed out with your girlfriend. That's where we met in a doorway. has no name. I love this.

The dude. And there was like nothing there. It's like, oh, there's that guy from the first movie. Nice to meet you. Moving on. And then we kept running into each other in some weird ways in town in L.A. We were in the same acting class for like two classes, not for very long. And it was like, oh, there's that guy again.

He's really good. We were both in relationships. And then finally, in 2010, we ran into each other at a. At a J.C. I had an audition. The story, the story is in the book. The whole thing's in the book. The whole thing is in the book.

But at a J.C. Penny's Christmas commercial audition, which I hadn't been auditioning for commercials at the time. And I was super depressed because I had just been cheated on. And it was the week before I shaved my head. I went full, I went, you know, full Britney spirits in that moment. And I shaved my head and felt amazing doing it. But right before I had met her. at this commercial audition and I was four hours late or something to the audition and we kind of

looked at each other and as it turns out he had also had the same thing happen to her that week but we never talked about it wow we were both just very broken heart just broken people and that year I went on a deep spiritual journey really connected back to my faith she went on a deep spiritual journey and a year later almost to the week I got 2011 I got a random call for an for a commercial audition again i'd maybe gone on three that year for a j c pennies christmas commercial audition and this time i showed up like four hours early because i could give i didn't give a shit i was just like oh this'll be fun and there she is the only first person i see thank you j t penny and i'm like and i just for the first time i saw her i was single she was but i like saw her and it was like time stood still and i write

about that moment um in the book and loved enough and uh and we just started talking And it was almost like we were like being pushed together at that point in time. Now, it didn't just end up great after. It wasn't like happily ever after. We were pushed together and then the work started. And it was actually very hard. That was shitty. Yeah, we didn't have a honeymoon phase at all.

But that's how we kind of, that's how we met. It was thanks to this like, you know, these two terrible movies, her movie wasn't that much better than mine. It was not bad. I agree. But it was because of the same people that were making. it was literally the same movie our wedding our wedding uh website like where it says like our story showed both trailers of the movies it's amazing and you can see they used footage from both of the movies in the trailers they're just oh my gosh and it was just really sweet it was a very hollywood-esque

story that was really they really came down to timing and divine timing and thing at the end of it get to toronto's main venues like budweiser stage and the new roger stadium with go transit Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com slash tickets. Today's episode is also brought to you by CBR, the Cod Blood Registry. If you have been a couple of things, listener for a while, you may have heard us mention cord blood registry when we are pregnant with Drew.

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So there was a lot of work right out the gate even when you're dating? Yeah. Wow. Why do you sound so confused by that? Well, I feel like in dating, it's a little more honeymoon phases. where you're like, oh, this is great. Like, let's go on adventures together. I actually think it's refreshing, though,

because it's the first time we've heard that, but that's actually how marriage is. So I feel like all dating experiences should start that way. What, really rough? Just throw people right on fire. I say this in the book. I literally, so you got to read loved enough and we have to have a conversation afterwards.

Yes. Yeah, go ahead, please. I feel like with dating, you put on such a facade for so long and you're just trying to impress each other and you're trying to like, you just BS your way through it pretty much. and then you get into marriage you're like oh my god i'm stuck with you like let's figure this out

glad that's how you feel man glad that's how you feel okay on the days that i don't like you i love you always but no i i feel like dating we miss that because yes whenever you get tired of each other you go home and it's like oh i don't need to see him today or tomorrow well marriage is different and i love that i love that you guys worked through it before you got there yeah i mean i think i think it's good to have because it's been, it was also very hard for us to have that much work to do so early on when we had so little foundation to stand on. But I totally agree. It's so important to do the work. Dating can absolutely be fun and all of the things that it is. But if you don't start the work until you get married, I mean, this is why so many marriages and relationships fail because people

are not ready to do the work. They're not willing to do the work. The grass is greener. And it's just like it starts. And I am really grateful that we had that opportunity to just be like, oh my God, we're such different people, but we want to be together. So how do we make this happen? And then we made it happen. It's probably the, it's why there's never been a question in our marriage no matter what comes up. There's never been, is this going to work or not work? Yeah. There's, because we've done such deep work from the beginning. And it's funny, but it's funny that you were like, it's so, it's so interesting that it was hard at the beginning, because we have this myth that dating should be a thing,

that we should have a honeymoon phase, right? But could we? Is it actually good for us? Look at our divorce rates. Look at, and the marriages that make it, how many of those marriages are actually happy? Or are they staying together for kids or for other financial reasons? Is there really joy and love in a lot of marriages today?

And we have to ask ourselves, are we marrying the right people? And how do we know? And so it kind of goes back to our faith. Like in the Baha'ath, we're told that we should be investigating character. So it doesn't matter of who you are or what you are or what your sexual orientation is or your gender. It's like, how are we dating?

Are we dating from the outside end or the inside out? So we should be investigating one's character while dating. And I make a joke and loved enough that forget about like honeymoon phases and forget about like romantic first dates and trying to sweep people off of our, you know, sweep people off their feet like all these Disney movies. brainwash us to do the best first date you want to have like a real uh idea if you're going to be with the person you's therapy can you imagine if we normalize that shit like can you

imagine it's like a if a first date was a therapy session and we're like hey let me get all my shit out on the table you would just you would know pretty quickly if this is the person that you want to be with but yet what we do is we just prolong the process we fall madly in love with each other from the outside in. We confuse ourselves with all of the dopamine and the sexual hormones. We replace conversations with sex and physical intimacy. And then we end up with somebody that we don't know. And then you finally get married. You have your honeymoon phase. It's awesome. The sex is great. We're together. And then shit hits the fan. And you realize you have no foundation and you have to build it in real time. It's like it's like living in a house while you're building it from the

ground up. How do you live in a place where you're trying to build a foundation? And that's why marriages aren't working, especially today and it's on-demand swipe culture. We're not truly getting a chance to experience another person's trauma. And Noe, one of our best friends, I remember early on, she gave me the best analogy for what marriage is. Marriage is two people, eat with lifetimes of shit and trauma, buying a plot of land, and just taking all of that shit in the trauma and just dumping it in the front yard throwing it in the front yard letting all that shit fertilize the soil and then building the foundation to your house out of it that's what marriage is you can't do it if you don't if you're if you don't know what somebody else's trauma and pain is

you can't do it if somebody else doesn't know themselves or is not willing to do the work and as we know one person can't do all the work it's got to be two people but that's not acceptable today which is why we get reactions right like you where you're like well that's so tell me about that that was so interesting because we're not used to it in our culture we're not used to like just showing up messy and vulnerable and being like all right let's I'm interested in dating but you know what I was abused when I was a kid and I got a lot of sexual stuff and I'm you know we don't have those kinds of conversations I'm not I'm not saying myself I'm just saying you know yeah as we know one and five boys are abused so oftentimes men never

ever admit to those things wow you mentioned did we marry the right person or do you have the belief that there's like one right choice there that's a really good question this is a deeper belief i have one version and you have yours yeah what do you mean a deeper belief well i think it for any it ties back to spirituality yeah yeah yeah i mean i was going to say no i don't think it's just one person i think you can absolutely make things work with more than just one person out of however many we are, seven billion people. Yeah. But I also believe, again, to go back to that deeper belief,

I just think my feeling for us is that we are truly meant to be together. Of course, it could have ended up differently, but I feel like there is such a strong purpose here that is almost like it just, this just had to happen. And I believe that there is like just a lot of, I mean, we believe in so many weird things. want to come off instead of that's going to what I was trying to say it's like a deeper it's like a deeper thing it's like I believe the strings are pulled right it's not just up to what I want and what he

wants I think that there are strings being pulled let's just keep it to that for now um there are powers that work for us I kind of want to say that okay go go for it so we believe so as we believe that I'll give you the short the bridge version is that this life is a workshop we're spiritual beings having a physical experience and and this is and like the womb and the womb and the womb we have everything that we need. We're growing. We're developing. We're growing eyes and ears and arms. We're in the womb. We have no choice of what we're doing there. We're just there. And then one day we're born into this world and we need everything that we were developing. We need our eyes, our ears. And we have use for them. We have use for all of these things. And then we know

we're going to die. One day, we're going to die and we're going to be born into some other place. We're not going to have any use for these physical things. We're only going to need the spiritual things, our spiritual eyes and ears, trustworthy, honest. honesty, you know, love, kindness, steadfastness, all of these virtues. But in that place where we're going next, this is our spiritual belief, which is a world of its own, heaven, whatever religion you are, whatever you want to call it, there's an existence, we know energy cannot be created or destroyed. We believe that you can influence this world.

Just like we, you right now, 28 weeks pregnant, can influence the brain of your child, your son that's in your belly. You could play classical music. You can talk to him. We know scientifically that when your son is born, he's going to be able to understand. understand the language and your voice as you've been talking to him, right? Well, we believe where we go next, the same thing can happen. So we have a spiritual belief that her father, as an example, has really guided us and brought us together.

My friends who have passed away, I've been making documentaries about people who are dying for a very long time. And I have a lot of friends, wherever that is in this next world of existence, who I know are guiding me and helping me and pulling strings every day. day. And sometimes our loved ones open doors, but we have to walk through them. Or sometimes doors open and they'll whisper in our ear that you should walk through them. And sometimes that looks like when things are really dark and you're dating and at least with us, there's a little bit of a pull coming from somewhere else that keeps us together saying, now keep going, a dream, something like that. And we've experienced a lot of really cool moments where we feel like we're being guided and escorted my loved ones and friends and family who have already passed on

and reminding us that there's a bigger reason that we're together and to get past our own trauma and our own ship. So forgive me. I'd actually never heard of the Baha'i faith until I watched the video of, I think it was something you did last week with like an interview about the faith. And it was interesting. So I actually was just as you were describing that, thinking about finding Nemo the movie when they jump on the Australian the little river current

Eastern Australian New Orleans where it's like where maybe but the am I right in saying the Baha'i faith doesn't believe in

a God as much as like a continuing legacy that you're you know in the stream of no the Baha'i faith believes in God but not in a guy

in the sky with a beard yeah so we believe that God is an unknowable essence in that well could we our finite minds will never understand something so infinite so exactly you know how can we ever picture in our minds a thing a being that could create the universe because we don't even understand

the universe we don't know where it begins and ends we have no like crime how can we examine like imagine a world where time doesn't exist or space or or picture something that created time so we're not able to fully comprehend it so we assign god these attributes like he she it whatever but God is kind of evolving beyond that stuff. And if God is the sun, then God sends rays to warm the earth. And those rays are the prophets of God, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, these types of teachers who've come from the beginning to educate us. So yeah, we believe God is, is bigger than a thing and it will blow your brains trying to. Basically that our religions fundamentally agree. We believe that they're all, we believe that they're all

talking about that same essence, that same God. We're all one. Yeah. It's funny to watch you, too, interact. Emily provides such color to, like, almost encouragement as you're talking, Justin, it's pretty great. I would like to, so on the issue of working in a relationship, what comes to mind when I think of that are things like actually taking time for self-reflection and self-awareness

and then probably the next step after that is taking time to. improve, you know, faults that I become aware of, whether that's through that self-reflection or through marriage, you know, or someone who knows me intimately. What's that balance for you? How much of it is marriage or how much of it is you realize it? I feel like 5% are flaws that I found myself. 95 are what? That's what I was getting at. Yeah, but, yeah. But then they'll come back around to be ones that you've created, like you've come across on your own.

That was funny. He'll never accept it. It's from me, but it will be implanted in you. Yeah, no, I'm kidding. Ever? No, no, Alex. He does. He does.

That was a joke. But we were on your, you have the man enough interview series on your Wayfair YouTube channel. And I know we have mutual friends in the huffs as well. Derek's great. But actually, some of the best perspective that I've gotten was from Mark Ballas. And he says, dude, whenever your spouse. or your partner gives you advice or gives you a criticism, like critique. A, like, hopefully that's coming from a place of love from them.

But also, you have to as a receiver of that, honestly evaluate the truth of that statement or the truth of that criticism. They're, you know, because very rarely do I just receive criticism from Sean where she's totally off base? It's like most of the time she's actually right. Like she might have delivered it in a way that hurt me or, uh, you know, maybe amplified some things, but it's like, no, there's something there that I should look into, you know? And having the self-reflection within arguments, within criticism, within a

marriage of however you deliver it comes with baggage. And you have to learn how to communicate that and sift through that and say, okay, I delivered this poorly because of my own flaws, but I'm delivering it because of this reason. And because I love you. Yeah. Yeah. Ram Dass has a really great quote. I might be butchering it now, but it's something like this. He said that I can do nothing for you but work on myself. You can do nothing for me but work on yourself. And I think that there's such truth in that because when we do that work on ourselves,

deep, deep self-exploration, like Justin's book right here, it was pretty deep. But when we do that work, I think it's easier for us to, when we see something in our partner that we don't love or doesn't quite work. then we can approach them with compassion because we know how broken we are ourselves. And we, like, I know my trauma. I know my crap. I know you have yours. So let me bring this to you in a way that doesn't like stab you in the gut because I know

that's not going to help. I know what that feels like. And that way we can also, when we get that, not criticism, but like feedback from our partner, we immediately know that there is some sort of truth in that. there is some truth in what they are bringing to me, and I am willing to look at it as I'm looking at all these other things. So I just feel like self-experation and work on ourselves is like, oh, it's it. It's it. And then after that, it's communication. Talk, talk, talk. Yeah, so there's an article with the headline of, with you two, we fight every day, quote.

Justin and Emily Baldoni share relationship ups and downs during quarantine. But in it, you say, that you've in some ways kind of mastered communication. Can you talk about what your systems are, what your patterns are, what you found helpful or hurtful? Luckily I don't Google myself. Like, what interview was that?

What interview was that? I don't know if you ever said that. You always have to love like the one line that they piece together for like a headline. It's always like, okay. You should Google yourself, Justin. There's some good shirtless picks, dude. You might come across, you know?

The last thing I need. I'm kidding. Especially when you reach out for two, which is big enough, the body image issue from head to toe. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. Yeah, I have a lot of body image stuff. Go ahead, my enough. What was the question?

Oh, communication. Yeah, yeah. What have you done well? Yeah. Fight every day. I would actually say I was not a very good communicator until Justin. I'm the kind of person who can absolutely go to bed angry. I almost want to go to bed angry.

I just pull that grudge. And he's like, no, no, no, no. We're talking about this. And so we can, like, love each other and spoon and feel like we're okay. So he's taught me a lot there. But I feel like communication, especially in marriage, it means more than just talking. It means authenticity and brutal honesty, not just with your partner, but with yourself. It's like, how do we talk in a way?

that we can come from love and kindness and also staying true to ourselves and honoring ourselves and being authentic. And also communication means that you better be a damn good listener because that's, without that you have nothing. And I think for us, that's just been, it's been practice. I don't know how to perfect communication unless you just practice and practice and practice. Well, it's like anything else. I mean, you guys are athletes, 10,000 hours. Yeah. You don't get at something by just showing up and then trying it once. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

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EastFam at checkout to claim the deal. That's V-E-R-B-E-N-E-R-G-Y.com slash EastFam. This discount is only valid for their bundles. So go ahead and try them out. We're going to link that down below too. Let's get back to it. I feel like I know the answer to this because you guys have shared a lot of how you've just decided to work through a lot of things from the date from day one but you live in an area. We lived in L.A. for many years. Love it there. But where divorce is rampant. I mean, people are so quick to to leave each other and say you're not the right person and the grass is greener or everything like that. And healthy marriages are almost, I don't want to say people are down on them but they're just like oh that's just not going to work for me yeah yes how how do you guys

prevent being like that and how do you live within a culture in a world where like we do you're almost like an outlier yeah how do you prevent being like your peers you know um well first of all first of all we now live in the country yeah we don't live in anymore. We've moved our family. We have a bunch of acres out here in Ohio, California. So we're staring at the beautiful Topatopa Mountain Range at our tiny house. Yeah, we're in a little tiny house right now. But, you know, I think it's for us, we, there's, I keep wanting to go back to faith because for us, none of it exists. None of it, it doesn't happen without faith. So that's where we're connected right so her even her wedding ring there's three rings on it there's

her me and the big one in the middle is god right yeah and and i think just like anything in life especially in marriage the why has got to be bigger than the two of us at any given point in time either one of us could destroy this marriage easily with our own egos dang it could be very easy with her abandonment issues with her father with my codependency i mean we could destroy this thing and a heart to be really honest with you guys i had a moment just the other night i was like and this is really honest but like i was a wet puddle on the kitchen floor and i'm totally because i had a really big self-expiration journey which brought up a lot of things and i was like i'm not good enough for this like you would be so much better off without me totally in my wounds

and i just had to express it never never luckily i mean luckily i was aware of i was like these are my demons talking. I know that, but this is why I'm crying so hard because I feel like I should not be here. You know, like you would be, you would get everything that you need if you weren't with me, you know, and I think, and I think it's important to say that that just happened 48 hours ago, because we are not perfect. The work continues. That was a very low moment for me, but I still have him. And we've been together for almost 10 years. So there has to be room and non-judgment around that, that those things will come up as we commit to work on our trauma and our wounds, right? But then it's like, what do we do to get to pick that wet paddle off the floor?

Even when she's in that place, I'm on the floor with her, reminding her that while she might not feel enough, she's everything I've ever dreamed of. And it's the fact that we can even have the conversation, if she feels safe enough to say these things while saying, this is not how I feel. These are my demons that are coming out. And that's the big difference. right we so often don't know ourselves enough to distinguish between what is our ego and our demons and our trauma and how we actually feel there are two different paths that we take in our minds and she has the wherewithal because of her deep deep work to know i don't feel this way this is what my demons are telling me right now and i want to say this out loud and i'm saying tell your demons

thanks for sharing but i love you not despite all of your trauma but because of it you're my person 100% of you i bought into you i love that part of you that trauma that that stuff your abandonment issues are a part of you and i love those too even though those hurt me those manifests in behaviors that can hurt me and cause me trauma you would not be who you are without it she wouldn't emily wouldn't be who she is without her father being an alcoholic in passing away young she would not be the woman that i'm madly in love with so right yeah so i think it's really important to then think about the bigger picture and i want to go back to faith which is that is the thing for us that always keeps us together because it's not even an option it's like

when you when you recognize that you are a spiritual being having a physical experience then regardless of what comes up in a marriage it's not that big of a deal because at the end of our lives if you flash forward to being 80 or 90 years old our marriage is going to look very different than it does today. And the issues that we're fighting about now are not going to be the issues we're going to have when we're 80 or 90 years old. You know?

And so we just have to put things in the perspective. We oftentimes, we have context collapse on the internet and social media, and we have it in our own marriages. You don't think about the big picture. And so for us, it's faith. It's the why. It's our children.

It's love. It's being in community together. as husband and wife for spiritual growth and development. Our marriage, right? What is marriage? Marriage isn't just a good time. We're married together. This is our gym.

Yeah. We go to the gym together. Yeah. There's some days when I'm helping her and I'm spotting her and there's some days where she's spotting me. Yeah. And as long as we're growing in that, like as long as we're growing in that way, then it's working.

So at the end of it, like we can have a moment like that hold each other. Talk to each other, be with each other, and then the next day have the most beautiful physical experience of our entire lives because we're in it together and we're there. And that is what marriage is. But most people don't know how to hold it and don't stick around for that second part. It's just like a cold one. How do we feel after we jump in cold water? Because there's always a reward. You feel amazing afterwards.

You feel amazing after you like dig into yourself and dig all that shit up and you lay it out and you have this moment. and you know what? It might look messy. I might be attacked. I might become a victim for a second. Who knows? But boy, if I can hold it and sit with it, if she can hold my stuff and we get out of that cold plunge, boy, you feel like you are alive. Dang. That's really important. Everything you just shared right there. Thank you for voicing it so well. I could never have verbalized that. but it made me think of there was a Navy SEAL I was listening, talked to, discuss this concept of self-imposed suffering. And it's like similar to the, you know,

David Dawkins? No, this was Dan Crenshaw. Maybe he was a Navy, yeah, he was a seal. Or he's a senator now, whatever. But it's kind of like delayed gratification to some extent where like you can either take the immediate, you know, easy route and jump in the warm bath or realize that it's going to be better in the long

run. If you suffer a little bit, if you like voluntarily suffer and then the the feeling of repair and replenishment that you get out of the cold tub, even though you went through that suffering is much greater. But our next question was going to be about, you know, what was it in the other person that made you voluntarily want to make it work? And first of all, it gets me pumped up to hear you talk about marriage and like this self-exploration and self-discovery because I feel like marriage is the best vehicle for that, where it's like, just like we're talking about the criticism from other person, dude, you're looking into a mirror every single day and getting feedback and there's no better way for self-improvement than like actually, you know,

going through that process. But it's, I love what you said about, you know, these demons that we each have, the baggage that we each have is what makes you, you. And for you to say that it's not, you know, Emily's eye color or her laugh or, you know, the more uppity things. It's also the darker stuff. And that's kind of what makes it worth it. And that's the beauty that you see is really powerful because that way when you are going through a hard time, I feel like you can actually point to that and be like, oh, that's a demon.

And you know what? They helped make you you. So anyway, that was deep stuff, dude. That was freaking deep stuff, man. dang that's we live in that space what we're working on next is we like it the balance of also belightness because we kind of look at the last 10 years and we're like all right we've done so much deep work and we're going to continue to do deep work and now this next phase of our marriage we're both actively looking at okay it's one of the reasons why we moved to oh hi we're actively

looking at okay how do we bring a more belightness in right it's like soil Soil has all of these different layers and all of these different ingredients that make it rich. I mean, you need all of them in a full life and in a full marriage. And we've done so much big work. Joy, adventure. Yeah, so that's the next thing. Small things and the big things. Yeah.

Dancing more and like being more free and flowing. We've done so much of that depth, that deep work together. And now we want to sprinkle in, all right, what does more joy look like for us? What does more adventure look like for us? And we think that because we've done so much of the foundational work, the joy is going to be richer and that's like the next phase of our marriage what we're looking at let me this is going to sound ridiculous but let me recommend e-bikes if you have not tried an electric bike it is dude it's the best you guys will have a ball so rent them out try it and see you don't live in the hills of

Nashville yeah that's true California we have we have we don't have any pavement here we're all but there's a great bike path that goes all the way oh hi that goes all the way down to we'll rent the e-bikes we have we have we have we have rangers we got we got The Polaris Ranger and the John Deere Gators that we drive around in our... Okay, sick. That's awesome. I love that. Pumpkin is here at Starbucks, and we're making it just the way you like.

Handcrafted with real ingredients like our real pumpkin sauce and rich espresso, sprinkled with pumpkin spice. It's full of real flavors you'll keep coming back for. Made just for you at Starbucks. So kind of a two-part question, but transitioning into babies, you guys have a daughter and a son? Yeah, five and a half and three and a half. Yeah, well, no, mine is almost six.

She'll be six in June. I don't want her to be sick. And Maxwell is three and a half. My little baby. It goes so fast. I felt like I had my daughter yesterday and she's almost two. It's crazy. But big question, within the relationship realm, within everything that we've kind of

talked about, what's the one thing that you would want to teach both of them about relationships and then yeah i'll i'll leave the second part after that you go first in water by the way yeah the problem is that when you take my water you drink all of it like that's what he does and i love a guy who appreciates hydration i love that but it's much vibration i brought i brought in here i pour the water notice i took a super small sip on purpose because i okay i know that and i'm and i'm not going to finish it cool do not finish justin are you hydrated enough. That's the question. No, because I've been doing interviews

since 6 a.m. and I'm so amped up on coffee. I'm going to hear, if I listen to this podcast back, I'm going to be like, Jesus, Justin, slow now. I've just been drinking coffee all morning. If you were in this room with me, you'd feel it. And so I just want to

sip of water, but I'm not going to take all your time. Thank you. I love this. I love it. She didn't see her move the glass. I brought it over here, and then she move in the past as you put it as far away as far as far as far as my side what would we teach them about relationships oh my gosh there is so much it's such a good question and such a hard question I feel like I think it's really important that we teach in the things that we that we just talked

about that it's it's not about only honoring yourself and or only honoring the other person why can I find the words at all right now I wish I had your coffee brain like like no thyself, right? Yeah. Who's ever quote that was? Is that Shakespeare? Know thyself. Well, Bahá'u'lla says, one should know, man should know himself, what leads him to loftiness sort of excitement. Glory or honor. So to like to do that work and, and something that we can do when they're young is just to

teach them mindfulness, which is like walking in nature in silence and then moving their bodies and dancing to different rhythms. And it's all of the things just to create that deep mindfulness of the present moment, right? Because. in that moment, you have the keys to everything. You can listen to the cues of your body, what your mind is doing, and you can just be with yourself. And that's what kids are so good at doing naturally. So I just want to keep teaching them that right now because that will then make it easier

for them as adults to do that self-exploration and that self-discovery that we've been talking about. And when you do that work, you are just a great partner, whether that's a colleague or a wife for a husband or a family member, a sister brother, whatever it is, it's just easier to be with people that know themselves because they don't lay their anxiety on top of you to fix it. These are people that can hold it for themselves.

And I think that is one of the first ingredients to a successful relationship, whatever relationship that might be. And I would also say that even though they do that work, they're still going to screw up. Oh, yeah. And you're human. And that's the thing, which brings, which is my, what I would want to teach the kids about

relationships. And what I think you and I are, are doing well is modeling the ups and the downs of marriage. Oh, yeah. So I think, I think our kids learn from us in two ways. They learn from what we say and they learn for what we do. So mostly from what we do. It's the mirror. It's the combination of those things. So I often say my action is today or their memories tomorrow. So something something that Emily and I have done is because, you know, we've all seen those parents who refuse to fight in front of the kids or we've seen parents who fight and just don't hold back in front of the kids. But oftentimes what doesn't happen is the conversation about what the kids have witnessed.

And kids are smart. They're these small two, three, four-year-old, five-year-old brains that take everything in. They are so much smarter than we give them credit for. And so what Emily and I are doing and in moments where we're frustrated with each other, we voice our frustrations to the kids and say mommy and daddy love each other very much, but mommy's annoying daddy and daddy's annoying mommy. And what's happening right now doesn't mean that we don't love each other. And we talk about it.

We call it out and we say, and guess what, you don't have to take care of us. You don't have to fix us because oftentimes kids will want to fix us, right? A lot of damage is done in parenting because kids grow up thinking that they have to fix their parents and take care of their parents where codependency originates, right? So we try to teach our kids in the good and the bad. We express love and show physical affection all the time in front of our kids. And so sometimes we'll just, like, I'll just grab her and we'll just kiss. And our kids look at us and they go like this, are you guys getting married?

Because every time we kiss, they say we're getting married. And it's sweet. And we get married a lot. And our kids will grow up seeing that their parents also get annoyed at each other. Yeah, also get frustrated and angry and that they don't have to protect one or the other because it's also balanced there. And also, we show love and we don't hold that back. And so by showing our imperfections, by showing that we're human, they can grow up having

a healthy, balanced expectation and idea of what they can expect in a marriage. Because it's not all rainbows and butterflies. And everybody's shit stinks. And it's important that they grow up knowing that. Well, Justin, Emily, you shared a lot of good stuff over the past hour. So I appreciate you giving us the time. Justin, I appreciate you bringing us this book. And Emily, you're rolling it as well.

We will link. This book would not exist without Emily. Yeah. This book exists because of the mirror. And the woman that she is pushing me to be a better man so I can become a better human. Emily, unfortunately, I don't think we'll have time to talk about Amma, but she, Emily does have a company called Amma, which is all about celebrating honest motherhood. It is going really well.

It's a lifestyle brand for Mama. us. So our mission and our passion is to support mammas in their transformation because motherhood, as you guys know, is definitely transformation. It's so easy. Like we have everything we need. We have all the support that we could possibly need. So yeah. I'm say I'm, I'm in the thick of it. So I'm going to check it out. So I'm, we do. I'm 28 weeks pregnant with the worst allergies in the world, and you obviously can't take anything. So, congratulations. Oh, man. Maybe we could have you on for a part two, but we appreciate your time. If you want to listen to Justin, actually read this book himself. He's the

narrator of the book, so you can get that on, fall asleep to your voice. But we will link information on that down below, as well as things like Justin's TED Talk and Justin Emily's proposal. But Justin, Emily, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for creating the space for us. It's really sweet. It's important work you guys are doing. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.