On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 3 Signs You’re in a Healthy Relationship & 2 Toxic Traits to Watch Out For

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm What truly defines a healthy relationship? And what makes one unhealthy? Is there an easy way to spot if the relationship we’re in is good for us or gradually hurting us? It often involves the level of our emotional health, our mental maturity to process difficult situations, and how far are we willing to stay in the partnership.   In this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty shares facts of how unhealthy traits eventually ruins relationships and the positive habits that can turn things around.Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/Key Takeaways:00:00 Intro01:30 The power of having a support system02:08 Why the quality of our relationships are good for us11:12 Sign #1: Sense of mutual respect15:01 Sign #2: Honesty18:56 Sign #3: Individuality24:53 Unhealthy Trait #1: Sense of control25:04 Unhealthy Trait #2: Emotional regulationLike this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Regardless of the progress you've made in life, I believe we could all benefit from wisdom on handling common problems. Making life seem more manageable, now more than ever. I'm Eric Zimmer, host of the One You Feed Podcast, where I interview thought-provoking guests who offer practical wisdom that you can use to create the life you want. 25 years ago, I was homeless and addicted to heroin. I've made my way through addiction recovery, learned to navigate my clinical depression, and figured out how to build a fulfilling life. The one you feed has over 30 million downloads and was named one of the best podcasts by Apple Podcast.

Oprah Magazine named this is one of 22 podcasts to help you live your best life. You always have the chance to begin again and feed the best of yourself. The trap is the person often thinks they'll act once they feel better. It's actually the other way around. I have had over 500 conversations with world-renowned experts and yet I'm still striving to be better.

Join me on this journey. Listen to the one you feed on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you,

stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Lewis Hamilton, and many, many more.

On this podcast, you get to hear the raw, real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. So today's theme is all about the power of support, the power of support. Our support system, our support network, our support community. And isn't it fascinating that we use the word support system, but we don't always create a system of support.

We have friends, we have family, we have the people we support network, but our network is often quite limited as to the types of people we have access to or the types of people we have a relationship with. So it's really intriguing that we have language that describes effectively what we need, but in our practice, we don't actually have what we need. We may say support system, but we don't have a system. We may say support network, but we don't really have a network.

We have a few people. And today, I really want to talk about the power of support, how to find people of equal vibration, how to energetically match. These are questions that I'm sure in your mind, like when you meet someone, how do you know that there is an energetic match? When you connect with someone, how do you know that you are of equal frequency or equal vibration?

Or even if not equal, but aligned. How many times have you ever thought of that? How many of you have ever had that idea in your head where you're like, I like this person, but I'm not quite sure if we're on the same frequency. I want to share with you some scientific reasons of why the quality of our relationships are good for us. And the reason I'm doing this is because I think more of us have challenges in our relationships. We may have toxic elements in our relationships or unhealthy elements in our relationships,

then healthier ones across the board. And it's important for us to understand the benefits of healthy relationships. One of them is actually longevity. And studies show that people, particularly men, are healthier when they're married, and they live longer, says the researcher Jones. And a lot of the longevity studies show

that being in a loving long-term relationship reduces stress, it helps us give up bad habits, and we actually adopt more positive habits. Another thing that's really interesting about having positive relationships, not just romantic ones, is that we actually accelerate our healing process. Benjamin Steinberg, MD, says, generally we see patients with strong social support having better recoveries. And by the way, that happens to all of us at different times. We all at different times need support in different ways. And Steinberg attributes improved recovery to lower levels of stress hormones like cortisol.

Now moving forward, we find that it also impacts our biology. Having positive healthy relationships reduces our blood pressure. Now, one of the researchers talks about how we know that sudden negative emotions can lead to sensations mimicking a heart attack, also known as broken heart syndrome. And Steinberg says it stands to reason the opposite is true as well. Additionally, people feeling love are more relaxed and more likely to engage in exercise or other activities beneficial to the heart. Now, here's the challenge. We hear this, we read this, we study this, and we think, but no one loves me.

But why aren't there more people who show me this kind of love? I need to find people who show me love. That's what our instinct suggests is the method. I have a lack of this. Let me fill this. When in reality, instead of trying to find love, we have to choose to create love. Instead of trying to expect love, we have to find ways to express love. Instead of hoping to meet someone who is loving, we have to make space for creating loving experiences.

We have to construct our support system. You don't just have one, you don't find one, you create one. Today is all about the power of support. But support, funnily enough, is something you have to create, something you have to adopt, something you have to adopt, something you have to build, and then you receive the support back. Positive relationships result in a stronger immune system. Studies show that people who engage in supportive,

positive relationships produce more oxytocin, and they're less likely to succumb to the negative effects of stress and anxiety. It's really important to understand these aspects of the science behind positive relationships because I think we all underestimate the negative. Often we let something toxic remain in our life for months if not years. We experienced the emotional pain but we also don't realize the physical, biological challenges that are being adopted. So studies show that we actually feel less pain when we have

beautiful relationships. A behavioral study demonstrated that the presentation of romantic partner pictures was sufficient to reduce experimentally induced pain. So relationships help us get through pain, relationships help us get through stress, relationships help us get through anxiety. So of course they should be something that we should be developing and investing in our lives.

How many of us truly believe that we are investing in our lives. How many of us truly believe that we are investing in healthy relationships? Investing in a healthy relationship doesn't just mean spending time. It means creating ways of having more powerful relationship, exchanges and experiences. I want to talk a bit about what are the qualities of healthy and unhealthy

relationships so that you can spot them, so that you can be aware of them, because I think that's what we often don't recognize. What we recognize is what we think someone is like as a person. We don't look at what they're like as being in a relationship with them. This is a really subtle point and I really want you to understand it and take it in. When you're looking to have a relationship with someone, you're looking at them and what they're like rather than what they like to have a relationship with. I'll give you a really simple example. I'm holding a pen and this pen is a Sharpie pen.

I'm sure you've seen a Sharpie before. And let's say from afar, the Sharpie looks aesthetically beautiful and I say, that's a beautiful pen. But then when I hold it, I have a different relationship with it. Now that I'm holding it, I'm not just looking at it, I'm not just viewing it, I'm not just observing it.

When I hold it, I may say that feels really uncomfortable. It doesn't, it's beautiful. But I may think that feels really uncomfortable. That isn't what I expected. And holding the pen is more important than what the pen looks like. It's kind of like when we buy something because it aesthetically is stunning, but functionally, doesn't solve the problem. I'm sure you bought a piece of furniture, you bought a chair or a couch that you would just

like, this looks stunning. It looks like all the catalogs, it looks like all the websites, it looks like that home store that you love visiting. But you don't like sitting on it. That's kind of like people. We observe people for how they look and what they come across as and how they appear, but we don't really understand what they're like to have a relationship with them. And I'm not just talking about romantic relationships. I'm talking about friendships. I'm talking about business. I'm talking about community, tribe, squad.

And so the reason I'm sharing this is just because someone appears to be trustworthy, just because someone appears to be a nice human being, you have to observe what they like in relationships, in connection to really understand whether this has longevity. And I'm so glad that this is resonating with you. I hope that this is resonating with you. I hope that you're listening going, yes, yes, yes, yes. So, let's talk about the science from a scientific perspective of healthy and unhealthy relationships.

Have you ever had one bad moment spoil your entire day or felt overwhelmed for no reason? What about stressed or anxious over that big moment or difficult conversation? You should try meditation and I know what you're thinking. Jay, you used to be a monk. I don't have time to sit in the woods for hours doing nothing, but really, all the time you need to start your own mindfulness practice is 7 minutes a day, with the daily Jay, my daily guided meditations on the calm app. You don't need to close your eyes or find a special seat, you can try it while you brush your teeth.

Do the dishes or walk your dog. My goal in 7 minutes a day is to help you find calm and feel grounded in your busy world. Plant beautiful intentions for an abundant life and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer to the life of your dreams. Here's what one of the listeners of the Daily J had to say about their meditation. Wow, I just had a super hard day at work and couldn't get my bosses comments out of He is what one of the listeners of the Daily J had to say about their meditation. Wow, I just had a super hard day at work and couldn't get my bosses comments out of my

head. Then I did the Daily J which related to my work issues, opened my eyes at the end of the session and felt renewed again. Previously today would have destroyed my whole weekend. Meditate with me by going to calm.com forward slash J to get 40% of a calm premium membership. That's only 42 dollars for the whole year for daily guided meditations. Experience the daily J only on calm. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on I Heart. I'm a

neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities, like does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or can we create new senses for humans? Or what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Intercosmos with David Eagleman on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation

of long-held family secrets. When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me. Something was annoying at me that I couldn't put my finger on that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you'll get your podcasts.

In the 1680s, a feisty, opera singer burned down a nunnery and stole away with her secret lover. In 1810, a pirate queen negotiated her cruiseway to total freedom, with all their loot. During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans. What are these stories having common? They're all about real women who were left out of your history books. If you're tired of missing out, check out the Womanica podcast, a daily women's history podcast highlighting women you may not have heard of, but definitely should know about. I'm your host Jenny Kaplan, and for me, diving into these stories is the best part of my

day. I learned something new about women from around the world and leave feeling amazed, inspired, and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So the studies show that healthy relationships have a sense of mutual respect and I think we don't really understand what respect means. We think of respect as people being courteous, kind, respectful, but respect is much deeper than that. And I always like looking at dictionary definitions

because they change my view of something. Listen to the dictionary definition of respect and compare it to the definition you currently practice or the action suggests that you practice. A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. And I would say in a relationship, it's really not about their abilities

or their achievements, those are appearances. It's about their qualities and their action. So we judge people by their abilities and their achievements, yet their qualities and their action are better signs of who they are. So when you're perceiving someone, and want you to ask the question, are you being currently impressed by their abilities and achievements? Because

what we do is we assign people, we prescribe, we predict that someone has certain qualities because of their abilities and their achievements. If someone is a good communicator, we assume their trust worthy. If someone is a good writer, we assume they're thoughtful. If someone is good at project management, we assume that they'll be organized at home. So we assign their abilities and their achievements, qualities, but qualities and action are really what we need to observe in a relationship. So respect is do you really respect a person's values and their boundaries? Someone may have a boundary, they may have a particular barrier that they don't want to cross. Do you respect that? Do you also know your own so that they have something to respect?

It's really interesting to me how often we want people to respect us But then when they're sharing their opinion, we don't have the time to listen to it So respect is so much more deeper than just being cordial or courteous with each other It's the idea of, do I give that person the opportunity to speak? Do I accept that even if their belief is different to mine, I'm open to hearing it. If you're not open to hearing someone else's perspective,

then that is a lack of sign of respect, no matter what that perspective is. I'm not saying you have to agree with their perspective. I'm not saying that you have to encourage their perspective. But if you want to build a relationship with someone, if you want to build a relationship with the people around you in a deep way, we have to be okay and open to hear their thoughts. And we can't just respect them because they like us. We have to respect that they have boundaries as well.

So a healthy relationship is one where you feel you can be honest without being judged and that someone else can be honest with you even if they disagree without being judged. A healthy relationship is also one where you feel clear stating your boundaries and you feel clear accepting someone else's boundaries. So respect is really important. The second one to me is honesty. But honesty is something that everyone says they want. But when someone's honest with you, we judge them for it. I remember being friends with someone who always said they wanted to be with an honest man. And she would always tell me, I just want to be with someone who always said they wanted to be with an honest man. And she would always tell

me, I just want to be with someone who's honest. I'm tired of having people who lie to me. I'm tired of having people who hide things from me. She started dating this guy. And within a month, he told her that he had a porn addiction. And he was really open about how long it had affected him, how he wasn't proud of it, how he wasn't happy about it, he wanted to change it, he felt a lot of guilt. And he expressed just how much since he'd been talking to this friend of mine that his addiction had reduced. Now, that was a shock for her. She wasn't expecting that. And she probably was surprised by that level of honesty within a month. And what ended up happening is she actually closed her off. She judged him for his addiction. Now, what happens in that cycle? Someone

is honest about something that is tough to receive. We shut down and distance ourselves. Now that person never wants to be honest again. A lot of people that are dishonest today, or I would say not dishonest, I would say people who may hide certain things or may not feel comfortable sharing certain things, it's because at one point they shared something and there was backlash.

At one point they shared something, they opened up their heart and someone didn't receive it with compassion, with kindness. And now they're scared. Now they never ever want to share it again because they think that people are always going to treat them that way. They're scared that people are always going to process things that way. So honesty means creating space for honesty and being honest ourselves. Are we honest? It's not that my friend should have just taken it really well

and been okay with it. That's not what I'm saying. But we have to at least respect the act of honesty if we're saying we think a healthy relationship has honesty. Real honesty is when what that person thinks, what they says and what they do is aligned. That is real honesty. And a lot of people struggle with that type of honesty because most people are thinking one thing, saying another thing, and doing a completely different thing, including us, including us, right? How many of you agree that you think one thing, but you say another thing and you do another

thing? This tension or this lack of alignment in our own lives results in what we experience from others as well. So most people are misaligned in that way. One of the things that I think is really healthy in relationships is having this conversation. I really set a precedent with my business relationships from the beginning saying,

hey, I'm really honest in business. I'm really transparent. I'm really opinionated. I will tell you this is how I like to work. Are you comfortable with that? Are you okay with that? And I find that being self-aware and then expressing myself awareness saves everyone a lot of time.

And then it allows someone else to be honest back with me as well because I have initiated honesty. And that's what I meant about creating honesty, building honesty rather than looking for honesty. If you construct a relationship saying, I really respect honesty and here's something about myself that I'm being honest about, you're more likely to insight it from someone else. Another healthy trait of good relationships that is often undervalued and not talked about as much. We talk a lot about independence,

that a good relationship is where both people can be independent because we don't want to be codependent. But what we don't realize, and I'm sure many of you have heard about codependency, where I'm sure many of you have heard about codependency and codependency. Right, I'm sure many of you have heard about codependency and codependency exists because we are fully dependent on the other person and we like the fact that they're always there, they're always around.

That doesn't come because we're not independent. It comes from a lack of individuality. So a healthy trait in relationships is not independence, it's individuality that someone is not dissolving their identity because of a relationship. A lot of people say I lost myself. I don't know who I am anymore. I gave them everything, right? Those statements that you hear, they are a dissolution or a dissolving of our identity, our individuality. Am I judging them for the fact that they like to play video games? Am I judging them that they like to have a vacation in a particular way?

Am I judging them because of how they like to dress? That is their individuality. And I find often that we demand this for ourselves, but we don't often offer it to others. A lot of these things we demand for ourselves, but we don't offer to others. Independence is different from individuality. Independence is this righteous feeling of I can do it on my own. Individuality is I am my own person, right? There's a difference between I can do things on my own. I don't need anyone.

To even when I have someone, I am still my own person. Please respect the difference. The desire for independence and pushing independence can often cause disconnection, but maintaining individuality is healthy for everyone in the relationship. When we talk about healthy relationships, we often talk about good communication. And while I believe that that's an obvious, I mean, I don't even need to explain that everyone knows that. I think it's really important to set communication patterns and habits early on in a relationship.

How should we deal with when we come across an issue we disagree with? How should we focus on this? It's kind of like, if you look at a sports team, a sports team has the way it wants to play, but they also have a plan for what if our opponent plays this way? What if we're surprised by bad weather? What if we are caught off guard by a player getting sent off or injured. What if we encounter something surprising that happens in the first few minutes?

Just because a team is fantastic at what they do, they don't go into a space thinking that they're gonna win and crush and everything's going to go great. No, they recognize. They truly, deeply recognize that they have to have a plan for things not quite working out, right? They have to have a plan for things not working out. And so I find that communication isn't about saying, oh, where we communicate?

Well, it's about saying, well, do we have a plan for what happens when? So I call this a if this, then that plan. If this happens, then we will do this. If this happens, then we will do this. If this happens, then we will do this. Now, you don't have to think about every possible circumstance under the sun, but understanding a few of those is really, really important.

Now, in the next few minutes, I want to talk about what are the unhealthy things to look out for, because I think what we do is we try and create this balance and we think to ourselves, well, if the healthy things outweigh the unhealthy things, then that's a good relationship. That doesn't even count for a diet. I'll give an example. Let's say you say, well, for breakfast and lunch, I'm going to eat healthy and then at night, I'm going to eat unhealthy. They don't just balance and equal each other out and you don't just become healthy.

Slowly, there is deterioration. Slowly, there is illness, disease, whatever it may be, if you are choosing to say, well, I'm going to have a pizza and fries for dinner every day, but I'm going to have a smoothie for breakfast, right? Like, that doesn't just equal itself out. You don't cancel out the unhealthy foods by because you have healthy foods, right? It doesn't just equal itself out. You don't cancel out the unhealthy foods by because you have healthy foods, right? It doesn't work that way. And so you don't just cancel out unhealthy traits because they're a healthy trait.

Of course, they're a good and bad in every relationship. There's tough and easy in every relationship, but there's a difference between really unhealthy traits that actually cause toxicity, right? There's a sense of like, I want to have something tonight that makes me feel good versus I'm going to eat something regularly. That's really, really bad for me. There's treating yourself and then there's hurting yourself, right?

You can have a treat once in a while, but you're not going to allow something to continue to be in your life. If it hurts you. Hopefully. I think we do. I think we confuse what's a treat and what's hurt. We confuse what's a treat and what's hurt. I really want to reflect on some of those unhealthy traits.

So one of them is a sense of control. It's where you don't feel like you're in a partnership or a relationship. It feels like you're being owned. Someone is controlling your actions, what you wear, what you think, what you believe. By control. How do you notice this? Oh, no, no, don't wear that. Oh, no, do you really need to spend time with them? Oh, God, they're the worst, right? Like reacting to your friends, reacting to the people in your life. Another one is a sign of emotional

irregularity. What I mean by that is everyone goes through emotions. Everyone goes through bad days where they can be more shut down, they can be down, but is someone in their lack of emotional regulation? Are they hurtful? Are they offensive? Do they say things they don't mean? Do they say things that are outlandish or extreme? What I find is that saying hurtful things can become a bad habit and hearing hurtful things can become something you become immune to. And that only gets worse and worse and worse because what that person wants is that they want the bad to be really bad, but then they're like, but no, things are good, right? Like we just had a bad day. And that idea of we had a bad day, but mostly we're good is not the way it works. Well, really works is someone saying, well,

I don't want to have this experience again. I don't want to be in this position again. And that's the question you want to ask that person. One of the things that I recommend couples do and I do in my own relationship a lot is that every few days and even every few weeks, I'll check in with Riley and I'll say, is this the relationship you want? Is this the relationship you want? And I asked that question myself as well.

And then I asked myself, well, if it isn't, what am I to do? What am I willing to do? What am I open to do to get to the relationship I want? Are you open to that as well? That kind of conversation can save a relationship and build a relationship. Of course, any type of sexual, physical, verbal abuse

is completely unhealthy. I don't even need to repeat that. And I would say that, actually, I do need to repeat that because unfortunately too many of us accept it because we don't believe we're worthy of more. We feel that that is a part of love because that is the love we've been exposed to. So I hope that today's session has had a huge impact on your relationship. We've talked about the value of healthy and unhealthy traits. What to look for? Right, these are the energy levels. If someone is operating on the energy level of ownership

You can't construct a relationship out of that. If someone is operating on the energy level of dishonesty and disconnection, but here's the thing You're not just trying to judge it and see it in them. You're trying to build it and create it within yourself. You're constructing in the relationship. You're facilitating it to see if that person's open to it. You can't just look for it in them. You have to lead the way and see if they're willing to lead with you, to grow with you, to grow with you, to work with you.

What do a flirtatious gambling double agent in World War II, an opera singer who burned down an honorary to kidnap her lover, and a pirate queen who walked free with all of her spoils,'t come in. They're all real women who were left out of your history books. You can hear these stories and more on the Womanica podcast. Check it out on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Our 20s often seen as this golden decade, our time to be carefree, make mistakes, and figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time?

I'm Jemma Speg, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender and visible things we don't usually talk about?

I'm Megan Devine. Host to the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look, everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days, and all those things we don't usually talk about? Maybe we should. This season I'm joined by Stellar, Gas like Abormatte, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. reach a cargo and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.