The Dr. Hyman Show - Why Love Feels So Hard — And How to Finally Feel Safe in Your Relationships (with Jillian Turecki)
Episode Date: November 26, 2025When relationships feel chaotic, it’s usually not just about the moment—it’s old patterns running the show. In this episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, I talk with Jillian Turecki, relationship expe...rt and bestselling author of It Begins With YOU, about why love can feel so hard and how to finally feel safe. Jillian opens up about her own heartbreak, loss, and transformation, and shares what she’s learned about healing old wounds and building relationships that feel secure, balanced, and real. Watch our full conversation on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. We discuss: • How to regulate your emotions and stay connected during conflict • The difference between past wounds and present triggers • Science-backed tools you can use to build emotional safety and trust • Why generosity, curiosity, and respect create lasting intimacy • How to choose a healthy partner and stop repeating old patterns Lasting love gets easier when you calm your body, challenge old stories, practice repair, and try to choose wisely from the start. View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman https://drhyman.com/pages/picks?utm_campaign=shownotes&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=podcast Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal https://drhyman.com/pages/longevity?utm_campaign=shownotes&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=podcast Join the 10-Day Detox to Reset Your Health https://drhyman.com/pages/10-day-detox Join the Hyman Hive for Expert Support and Real Results https://drhyman.com/pages/hyman-hive This episode is brought to you by Seed, BON CHARGE, Function Health, Sunlighten, Timeline and Paleovalley. Visit seed.com/hyman and use code 20HYMAN for 20% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. This holiday season get 25% off until December 31st. Head to boncharge.com to receive this offer today! Join today at FunctionHealth.com/Mark and use code MARK2026 to get $50 OFF toward your membership. Head over to sunlighten.com and save up to $1400 or more this holiday season with code HYMAN. Support essential mitochondrial health and save 20% on Mitopure. Visit timeline.com/drhyman to get 20% off today. Get nutrient-dense, whole foods. Head to paleovalley.com/hyman for 15% off your first purchase. (0:00) Introduction to emotional regulation in relationships (2:27) Jillian Turecki's personal journey and insights (7:22) Childhood conditioning's impact on adult relationships (13:12) Techniques for self-regulation and managing triggers (23:32) Addressing heartbreak, emotional trauma, and prolonged grief (33:00) Building and maintaining healthy relationships (38:54) Tools for better relationships and challenging unconscious expectations (47:06) Exploring the nine truths about love and unique relationship arrangements (57:40) How to choose the right partner (1:01:31) Resources for relationship improvement by Jillian Turecki (1:03:22) Sponsor message
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What you're afraid of is that you are not good enough, and that because you're not good
enough, you are somehow going to be deprived of love.
That is the fear that underlies all problems in relationships.
Jillian Tarecki is a renowned relationship expert.
She's a New York Times best-selling author.
She's a hope for the podcast, Jillian on Love.
Jillian has helped millions of people over the last 20 years to revolutionize their relationship
with themselves so that they can transform their romantic relationships.
We reached out to our audience and we let them know you were coming on the podcast.
And the number one topic they wanted to know about was emotional regulation and managing triggers.
Nine times out of ten, we're projecting.
We're not seeing our partner.
We're seeing our ex.
We're seeing mom.
We're seeing dad.
And we're seeing things that we haven't resolved inside ourselves and making our partner the enemy.
This is the most important key to self-regulation.
Is stopping the story inside your head that is making your partner into the enemy.
How can couples rebuild a connection if it's faded or it's lost?
You cannot change another person.
You can only change yourself.
You have to have the mindset of I'm going to show up in the best way that I possibly can for me.
And if it changes things great and if it doesn't, then I know that maybe this isn't the right relationship for me.
Talk about heartbreak because I think it's something people really struggle with.
People write into me all the time saying it's been two years.
When am I going to get over this person?
What I've discovered is that they're not really grieving the relationship anymore.
They are actually stuck in the story.
of what happened. Number two, something else is going on in their life that is making it difficult
to move on. They can't get themselves out of the emotional state of sadness or whatever, the
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Welcome, Jillian, to the Dr. Hyman Show.
I'm really glad to have you talking about relationships
because they are one of the most fraught areas
of people's lives that perplex them, confuse them,
break their hearts, have them spinning,
don't know how to navigate, don't know what's true,
don't have the right roadmap, and there's so much chaos in relationships. I see it in my own
community. I've certainly been married many times and divorced three times. I get it.
I love you. I'm an expert in relationships now, honestly. Exactly. So much experience. So,
you know, I want to dive in first by asking you about your own story, because you didn't sort of come
into the world born with these insights that you've developed around love and relationships.
they've come after a lot of hardship and your own struggles
and your own childhood challenges and with your parents
that led to sort of a whole bunch of stuff
that was kind of not right in you
and that you had to heal. And I'd love you to just sort of maybe share
your personal story of heartbreak loss, transformation,
your mother's death, your divorce,
all the things that you struggle with
that help you understand that it's not the other person.
It begins with you, which is with the title of your book,
which is what we're going to be talking about.
Everybody definitely got a copy of that book,
It's out now. It begins with you basically about how to heal your relationships and heal yourself. And I think it's an incredible book. So I think you're writing it. But let's dive into your story.
I taught yoga for many years, almost like 20 years in New York City. So I was always obsessed with the relationship between the mind and the body. I was always obsessed with how do we deepen our relationship with self. And that includes our minds and our bodies. I was teaching.
Teaching yoga and always felt like there was something more that I wanted to do with my life, but I didn't know what that was. And also, I was very much what many women want, especially in their, you know, 20s and 30s, they want to get married and have kids. So I was, I didn't know. I wasn't raised. I was raised with the understanding that you just follow certain rules. Like you follow like the way things are supposed to be done. Like I was supposed to have a job and have a four or
1K and get married and have kids.
And I was like, no, I'm going to be your teacher.
I'm not going to have a 401k, but I'll get married.
And I met the man who would become my husband and then my ex-husband.
And I always say that our relationship before we got married was about 90% great and 10% extremely problematic.
But really problematic, like the things that you shouldn't ignore.
But we think that marriage, a lot of people think and a lot of women think that marriage is that ultimate commitment that's going to give her the security that she needs to feel comfortable in life.
But the reality is that marriage just magnifies, you know, that 10% became the 90%.
And the 90% that was good actually became the 10%.
So it was a very challenging marriage and I felt very lost in it.
I didn't know what to do. And towards the right before, or about six months before we ended it,
my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the morning of June 2nd, 2014, I woke up to a
miscarriage and he decided to leave the marriage via text. He said he wasn't coming home.
And days prior, I had just discovered that my, I was just told that my mother,
only had about a couple months left to live got it coming and going yeah i yeah it was it was it was it was it was
a it was a it was a it was a terrible day and so i had that was a day where just my whole world fell
apart and i remember distinctly having this thought like oh this is what it means for your life
to fall apart and um it was a very shocking time and i you know it took me a
long time to really pick myself off the ground and to pick up the pieces, but I became obsessed
with two things during that time. Number one, how am I going to get myself out of this whole?
Like, how am I going to feel better? How am I going to move on? And then number two, which is the obsession
I continue to have to this day, is what makes a relationship work? Because I was shocked,
devastated and beside myself, that I was in this position, that this didn't work.
And it was a real moment of, I guess, I have to look in the mirror.
Reckoning.
Yes, I reckon.
So that's when you kind of came up with the idea, it begins with you, like maybe there's something.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think.
How you were showing up or your programming was or patterns were?
I think there was just that moment of, you know, I am the common denominator and, you know,
in all my relationships, it doesn't mean that I am the problem. It doesn't mean that I am the only
problem. It just means that my relationships are a reflection of my choices. They are a reflection of
my capacity. They are a reflection of my skill set or lack thereof. They're a reflection of my
self-esteem and self-work. Their reflection of my childhood conditioning. I had to take a look.
Well, it's so interesting that you bring up the child of conditioning because it, you know,
we think we're grownups and adults and we've evolved and developed as human beings.
And then you get in a relationship.
And so like what Rob Dust says, you think you're enlightened and then you go home for Thanksgiving.
Yes, exactly.
Then you spend time with family.
Yeah, exactly.
And so I think this is the true of relationships.
After a couples are together for a while, the electricity kind of dims a little bit.
The sparks stop flying as intently.
but the reality of their original childhood love software emerges,
which is based a lot on how we experienced our parents,
how they treated us, how they treated each other,
the models we had, the beliefs we basically formed as a result of that,
and how we carry those unconsciously into our relationships
and how those really form the basis of our dysfunctional relationships.
And then we have to figure out how to unpack that and repair that
and to kind of rewrite our corrupted love software.
And I certainly had to do that in my life, and it was incredibly painful, difficult process,
but I think, you know, there's no roadmap for this. And your book, it begins with you,
is kind of a roadmap for this. And we reached out to our audience at YouTube and we let them
know you were coming on the podcast. And the number one topic they wanted to know about was
emotional regulation in managing triggers. You know, I once heard that triggers are your teachers.
If you get triggered, that's a good thing because it means there's something to look at. You know,
Maybe there's something with your partner, really, that you need to pay attention to.
Or maybe it's something unresolved in you that you're projecting on your partner and creating chaos.
So how do we kind of understand if it's old trauma in our childhood software or whether it's something in the moment that really is real?
And how do you regulate yourself in the heat of all this triggers to kind of manage that?
And how do you recognize this emotional dysregulation?
Because I've seen it a lot.
I've seen it in partners.
I've seen it in friends.
I, you know, just people come apart.
and then they can't hold a steady state of being in the present moment with their partner in their
adult self. It's like I call it the amygdala hijack. You know, it's like your amygdala is your
fighter flight part of your brains. So your migdala hijacks the stage and takes over.
Yeah. And then when that takes over, isn't it also referred to as the reptilian brain?
So there were no longer actually behaving like human beings. We're kind of really in our most primal state
reacting. Dinosaurus.
Dinosaurus. Exactly. So there's a lot to unpack here.
the first thing that I want to say is that it's not just our love software from childhood.
It's cultural as well.
We don't live in a culture that romanticizes romanticism, that sees love as lust.
So we have been taught by society, by art, and by cultural narratives, that loving someone is,
actually lust when it's not those are two very different things now a lot of relationships
fall apart because of two things one is two people are not actually doing what it takes to keep
some of that passion alive you know they don't that the passion is very motivating when we feel
passionate about anyone or anything that's what motivates us yeah in a relationship and
a long-term relationship, that passion, what changes is that in the beginning you just feel it
because you're under the spell of chemistry and attraction, which is very, as I'm sure you can
attest to, is very biological and very hormonal, right? There's just all these hormonal
flares that are happening. Then to keep the passion alive, we actually have to be more passionate
in the relationship. We're thinking that it actually is something.
that's coming outside of ourselves versus being curious about the person,
versus like bringing some of that passion home to our relationship.
And then also understanding that like all that crazy chemistry in the beginning of a relationship
is not an emotional connection.
That's something else.
And if you can learn to value the friendship part, then that's, then that is actually going to be
what's going to help you have a longer relationship.
So I just, we're going to get to the emotional.
You want to marry your best friend kind of what you're saying?
Well, you know, it's so interesting.
Yes.
And yes, you want to marry your best friend because of if you want to be in a relationship
over the long haul, don't you want someone who you can trust and you can,
who you know really has your back when your mom dies, when your dad dies, when God forbid,
your child dies when something terrible happens, you want your best friend. You don't want the person
who's just great in bed who you can't trust. That's the last person you want when the shit hits
the fan in your life. But at the same time, you don't want to just nurture the friendship.
You also want to nurture the passion part of the relationship. Anyway, so I really felt like that
was important because we tend to blame everything on childhood trauma. And it's just
simply that it plays a role, but it's not everything. We have to understand just our
conditioning of just watching a rom-com and that we don't understand what it really means
to love someone. Okay, so getting back into self-regulation when we're triggered, yeah, it's really
hard. And some people, like, I'm a very fiery person. So it's like if I get upset about something
like, I'm going to get really upset, right? And like we and some people are just more reactive
than others. And part of that is cultural.
You know, I know two people who are married. He comes from an Italian family. She comes from a Nordic family.
So like, totally different. So when he's, when he's happy, he is really happy. When he's upset, he is really upset. He talks with his hands and there's so much drama and she's more reserved. Now, interestingly enough, that's part of what attracted them to each other because they're so different. But how are they going to be with conflict?
self-regulation. So she might be totally dysregulated and triggered, but her go-to might be to
shut down, to get cold as ice, to pull away. He might just get angry or loud. And so what they have
to both understand is that, one, they are responding to each other's different styles.
Number two, he needs to go take a walk.
She probably needs to go take a walk.
And so the self-regulation when you're triggered,
you said something about projection.
Nine times out of ten, we're projecting.
Nine times out of ten, when we're upset with our partner,
and of course, this is not always,
sometimes our partner legitimately does something that upsets us.
Of course.
But nine times out of ten, we're not seeing our partner.
we're seeing our ex, we're seeing mom, we're seeing dad,
and we're seeing things that we haven't resolved inside ourselves
and making our partner the enemy.
This is the most important key to self-regulation,
is stopping the story inside your head
that is making your partner into the enemy.
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we're meaning making machines yeah tend to make meanings and throw our interpretations
projections onto the world around us, including our partners, and that's what gets us into trouble.
Then we don't even stop to question our assumptions or beliefs or projections. We just think
they're real and they feel real in our body, but they're mostly not. Yes, yes. So in the
moment, you take a deep breath. You take a deep breath and you say I'm going to, you know,
pause and go for a walk, I don't know, go work out, take a shower, take a nap, maybe you need
a drink of water. Maybe you need a little food. You know, maybe you're hungry.
One of the biggest unlocks in this situation is an interesting one, which is, I was sort of
taught by my friend, who's a life coach, Lauren Zander, and, you know, she basically said if you can,
if you can only have one crazy person in the room at a time, that's kind of the rule. And so
if someone's kind of in their amygdala or their reptilian brain, the other person has to breathe
and let it all be received and not put meaning on it, not defend it, not try to argue with it,
not try to fight it, because that's just going to make it worse.
And so you kind of reflect back that you get what they're saying, that they feel heard,
they feel understood, they feel validated.
Even if you think they're 100% wrong, they're still entitled to their perspective and opinion.
And as soon as you do that, it often transmutes.
You don't have to fix it or change it.
And it's kind of like a party trick, but it really works.
And I've used it in live situations where something the other person was just kind of really out of control.
And just by actually feeling validated in their perspective and seen and heard, it like diffuses all that energy.
But it's really hard to hold in your body because you have to be like a, you know, kind of like a, what's the world?
Kind of like water, like the Taoist.
You just let it flow and not, you know, be a hard surface that it bumps against.
And that's hard.
But it's really a powerful tool.
I agree that it's a powerful tool.
I think it's a worthwhile aim for everyone to aim to be the calm person in the room.
I think that that's just always a better.
I think that's a good pursuit is to be the calm person.
That's a good idea.
It's not always possible.
No, well, actually, it's always possible.
It's always in your control.
Sometimes when you're hijacked, though, it doesn't feel like it.
No, exactly.
But our behavior is 100% in our control.
And so yes, so in those moments where you have allowed yourself to lose control, that's when you have to just say, you know what, I feel out of control right now.
I'm just going to like take a time out.
I'll come back.
Or I'm really sorry.
I'm very, very, like things that I've used in the past and help people use in the past that just say, you know what, I'm really worked up right now.
I'm so sorry.
Like, I'm going to take a minute.
Like, I'm upset right now, and I'm going to take a minute.
But this, all of this requires so much practice.
And it's what you're doing outside of the relationship that matters.
So people, I have found that people who have a regular meditation practice or who really
or have other sort of practices that help them ground, then,
I find that they are less reactive in those moments.
It doesn't mean that they're not having reaction.
It doesn't mean that they're not getting upset,
but they are less likely to let their amyglia
take over their entire physiology.
That's really important.
And I think having that capacity to create a pause
between your thought and your words and your actions
is really hard for most people.
It just collapses.
So it always seems like one.
And I think, you know,
Victor Frankel said, you know, between stimulus and response, there's a pause,
and in that pause lies a choice, and in that choice lies our freedom, right?
So he was in a concentration camp, for God's sake,
and he was able to be liberated inside because he didn't let the Nazi guards actually take his psychological freedom
and give them the power over his emotional state, which is, I mean, pretty extraordinary.
I mean, most of us don't have that extreme, but it's an interesting framework to think about
and to be able to slow down enough to actually create that pause
and to not believe your thoughts.
I mean, I think, you know, my friend said we have a lot of ants in our head,
automatic negative thoughts, or we, you know, we believe every stupid thought we have.
And we don't have to believe every thought we have.
They're just thought for them.
That's why you say meditation is good because you just sit there and you go,
oh, wow, I'm watching all these thoughts go by and like, gee, one minute I'm happy,
one minute I'm sad, one minute I hate this person, one way I love this person.
So they're like, you're kind of, you kind of, oh, this is just my monkey.
mind. You know, this is not real. Exactly. And it's, it's a really powerful practice. So
let's kind of go back to the root root, because you said nine times out of 10, it's usually
something from your past, like from your trauma or your childhood or some, and, you know,
other times it's your cultural conditioning or maybe the other person. But if that's true,
you know, how do you, how do we think about starting to heal emotional wounds? Because people do
therapy, people are doing things like Hoffman, which is an intensive group process to work through
that people are doing psychedelic medicine therapy like mdMA therapy or psilocybin therapy how do people
started to kind of really go back and excavate i call i call it soul archaeology how do you go back
and dig and find out what's going on there that helps you unpack it yeah this is a very important
question and um i believe that there is not just one way to heal um i know people who have had profound
breakthroughs in therapy, um, I haven't. And, uh, you know, I know people who have been in therapy
for years and years and years and nothing's changing. And I know people who've been in therapy
and it was like the best thing that's ever happened to them. I, I sort of see it as like two-part
approach, which is are you, so number one, like, are you experiencing any sort of psychosomatic
symptoms. So like are you, are you experiencing any sort of physical pain or illness that could be a
result of your nervous system being chronically dysregulated because you're chronically stressed
because you haven't, you haven't dealt with certain emotions, right? And so in that way,
I find somatic work to be incredibly healing. But to me, sometimes the most profound somatic work I've
ever done and you know i've been a yoga practitioner for almost 30 years so yeah beyond exercise
is is fun having fun remembering that you are alive and um and whether that's with friends
yeah playing and connection i have found that to be uh profound and i think that um another part is
you know because i've dealt with so much grief and heartbreak and i've helped thousands of people
overcome heartbreak is really the story that we tell ourselves about that heartbreak. When we can be
more mindful and look at things from different perspectives, that can be incredibly healing. Like,
for example, I healed by understanding that if someone betrayed me or was really wrong to me or wasn't
the right father that, you know, they should have been, I recognize that it's not personal. I recognize
like there's something going on with them. So being able to look at the story differently,
that's healing. Being able, for some people, some people have no idea how their childhood impacts
their current reality. And in that regard, therapy can be wildly impactful in a great way.
But if you have all the people who are, who have all the awareness, they've done the Hoffman
they've done this, they've done, and they're still not getting better or they're still not
feeling better. You know, sometimes it's, it boils down to the fact that they are, they're valuing
certain things in their life that's not helping them. Sometimes it means they actually have to
help other people because they're too wrapped up in their own problems. So you asked a question,
like, how do we heal this? And I'm answering it in a way, like this is not, it's not just
one answer. It's so multifaceted. And what works for one person doesn't work for another. But I will say
this, for most people who've like done everything and they still feel stuck, look at your beliefs
about yourself and about the world and your and your world. Get out of your head by helping someone
else in a big way so that you stop thinking about you and yourself. And then figure out if there's
anything stuck in your body and nervous system. And that's it. Not easy. The somatic work's important
because a lot of the stuff is stored in your body. So it's not, you can't intellectualize it.
You can't just know the story and it's not fully metabolize and kind of letting you be free and
not have that automatic reaction. So that's a tough one. I think a lot of the somatic therapies can be
really helpful. There's a number of tools out there. It's important to be able to investigate your
own thinking is kind of what you're talking about. And to do other modalities, then try things
that work, because it's not one size fits all for everybody. But it's important to understand
that, you know, often what's showing up in the relationship is your 5-year-old or your 8-year-old,
not your 35-year-old or your 50-year-old or your 60-year-old. And having that understanding
that you're both, both people in a relationship are operating usually from that unconscious
place. I think Carl Jung said it clearly, you know, if you don't examine your unconscious, it will
basically control your life. So I think that's kind of what most people are stuck in.
Let's sort of talk about heartbreak because you mentioned a few times and I think
it's something people really struggle with and it causes depression. It can cause real
dysfunction in life. It can cause suicide and other more serious things. You've helped thousands
of people navigate this. So give us a sense of how do we how do we navigate that if anybody
listening is going through that on a on a relationship level or even grief level for loss of
someone they love, you know.
Well, let's talk about it from like a divorce breakup perspective, you know.
Most people, not every breakup is created equal, obviously, but there are some breakups
that really bring us to our knees.
And for those that are really traumatic, it's just like an emotional catastrophe, you have to,
what's really useful for people to understand is that you are going to go through a temporary
insanity.
It really is that. You are not going to feel in your right mind. You're going to feel like you're going
through withdrawal. You are going to feel like you're not good enough. Your mind is going,
you're going to ruminate, you're not going to feel like yourself, you're going to feel
insane. And that's because there's just so much going on. Some people are divorcing after 20 years
together and then you're trying to figure out who am I if I am not in this relationship. So there's
an identity crisis that's happening. A lot of people are then fearful. They're fearful of the
unknown. They're fearful that no one's going to love them again. They're fearful of, you know,
sometimes you think you're crying over this person but really what's happening is that it's unearthing
old pain so you're crying for the father that you never had or the mother you never had so some of
these breakups can be can can like I said be a real emotional catastrophe and so I think the first
point the first part is just understanding that like you're going to be okay this is incredibly
difficult for everyone. No one, no one, no one gets so out of heartbreak. There's no way to circumvent
the pain of a broken heart. It's just, it's part of the human, the human condition. And then you
want people, people, which is the crisis I see. That's a, that's a, you know, I literally,
I literally know someone who's, you know, husband died 30 years ago and they're still constantly
talking about them, can't let it go, or in grief, constantly.
their life is completely spiraled.
I mean, it's just, it's quite an extreme situation, but how do, how, so we all go through
this process, what you're saying, it's inevitable.
You can't avoid it.
You have to lean into it.
And then what?
Like at some point, you kind of have to get sorted, you know.
Yeah.
So, um, I want to address the woman that you just spoke about who's still grieving her late
husband, you said, of that, who died 30 years ago.
I want to address that because I think it's important, but, but people write into me all the
time saying, you know, it's been two years, it's been three years, you know. Some people are say,
you know, it's been six months. When am I going to get over this person? I'm like, you know what?
Six months is nothing. Like, you're going to have to face this a little bit longer. But for some
people, it's like it's a really long time. And what I've discovered is that it's, it's not about,
they're not really grieving the relationship anymore. They are actually stuck in the story of what
happened that's number one number two something else is going on in their life that is making it
difficult to move on so they almost always what i find is that there's also they're not happy with
work or they're having an issue with a family member so they're not they're it's extremely
contextual and it's not just about them and so they can't get themselves out of the emotional state of
sadness or whatever, the grief, because there's other things that are not working in their
life. So therefore, the path to healing is to not focus on the relationship, is to not focus
on getting over that person, but to focus on what else is missing from that person's life
and to help them, you know, whatever, get a better job, find their purpose, find community,
work on their bodies, whatever it is that's happening, and that's how they actually start
to heal. So it becomes less about the other person. Because the thing is, is that we put so much
focus on that situation when really something else is happening. Similarly, like, I know people
who will, like, go back to the person who's, like, totally wrong for them, like, doesn't want to
commit, you know, it doesn't even treat them that well. And they're like, you know, I get really
strong, I break up with them, and I keep going back. Like, what is it? Well, you know, sometimes it's
just the sex is great, but like it's not just that. It's this person, there's always context.
That person almost always is feeling untethered from their family, community, or from purpose.
And so because they feel untethered, they go back to something that's familiar that is,
meeting their needs in the moment. It's meeting their needs for connection in the moment,
it's meeting their needs for, you know, significance in the moment. But it's always an example
or a symptom of something else. Rarely do you have the person who's like, I feel great in my life,
I feel connected, I feel connected to self, and they keep going back to the person who treats
them like crap. It doesn't happen. So for the woman, for your friend who's still grieving,
the loss of her husband from 30 years ago, there's different strategies. One that really helps
is her doing something that honors her late husband so that she doesn't feel so alone in the
world. She actually honors him. Also, there could be something else going on in her life
that's making it very difficult for her to move on. There's, oh, you know, people are
so interesting. It's why I love the work that I do and why it can be very tricky on social
media, especially with people saying, if you're feeling this, well, then this is because this
is happening. And it's rarely the case when you speak to someone, you see that there is this
whole holistic tapestry and there's this whole thing that's going on. And if you really want to
help someone change, you have to look at the other things that are missing in their life and
help them meet their needs. So she's really looking at, you know, the kaleidoscope of their life
and where things aren't working and people tend to kind of project it all into a relationship
and you're saying it starts with you. It always starts with you. Yeah, it starts with you. And I think
I want to help people understand themselves better. I want to help people understand their
behavior more because then they don't feel so lost in it. And that's where suffering comes from.
suffering comes from feeling lost and not knowing how to navigate?
I think true suffering comes from feeling completely out of control to change your circumstances.
I think that causes suffering more than anything else.
Well, you know, one of the things you talk about, Gillian, is sort of what makes relationships work?
What are the sort of non-negotiables?
Would you mind sharing a little bit about what those are so people can understand what a healthy relationship looks like, what it feels like, how you think about it, and define it?
Respect and trust.
That's the baseline.
foundation that creates emotional safety. If you don't feel respected or you don't
respect the other, you've got you've got no leg to stand on. If you don't trust the other
person, trust them to be there for you, trust them to be your friend, trust them to not stray
from the relationship, there's nothing. And then it's how you deal with conflict. And conflict
is really in the repair. Do you have an argument? And then do you ignore each other for
week. Do you have an argument and not talk about and sweep it under the rug and then get very
resentful? So it's really in how you deal with repair and respect and trust. So you build that
through the way that you communicate. You build that by the way that you listen. You build the
respect and trust by being good friends to each other. You build that by being reliable.
you build that by by understanding like men and women fundamentally don't understand each other.
So if you're in a heterosexual relationship, you need to understand what your partner needs
and you need to be able to meet their needs.
And most people are only concerned about their own needs and getting their own needs met.
And it has to be explicitly.
I often think we can read each other's minds, but we can't.
No, we can.
So being curious is a good quality to have in a relationship, being curious about
what they're experiencing about them as human beings.
Yeah, what's going to make me feel loved?
Yeah.
This whole idea of like rupture repair is something a friend of mine who's a couple's therapist
talks about, you know, we have these ruptures in relationship.
And the key is how do we repair?
You said relationships don't die because of lack of love, but because people stop feeling
connected.
And they have these ruptures and these little tiny death by 1,000 cuts.
How can couples rebuild a connection?
if it's faded or it's lost in the process of this constant kind of rupture, rupture without repair.
And then how do they kind of get back on track?
By first asking yourself, how am I complicit in what it is that I say I don't want in this relationship?
Yeah.
Oh, that's a big one.
Look at the mirror.
Look at the mirror.
Nobody wants to do that.
Nobody wants to do that.
So it's your fault.
You did it to me.
It's the blame game.
Yeah.
That is the first step.
What can I do differently?
There's how have you showed up in a way that actually contributes to the dynamic rather than saying, oh, it's only this person, but like the old adage it takes to the tango is actually true. It's what you're saying. Very much so. I mean, of course, in some cases it's not. And definitely there are cases where there's one person who's more of the problem. But you have to, this is not easy, but it's necessary. You have to have the mindset of I'm going to show up in the best way that I possibly can for me. And if it and if it changes,
things great and if it doesn't, then I know that maybe this isn't the right relationship
for me. But it repair, it's just you can, you cannot change another person, you can only
change yourself. And people tend to, but we can influence another person. And the way that
we influence another person is by changing ourselves and also by understanding number one
human nature and understanding your partner's nature. Like everybody wants to
to feel understood. Everyone wants to feel appreciated. Everyone wants to feel like they're listened to.
So maybe the first step is, I'm going to be a better listener. I'm going to just come into this and
just be a better listener rather than trying to always prove my point. No, I was going to say that is not
an easy thing to do. You know, there's a whole process of nonviolent communication, you know,
how to have crucial conversations, nonviolent communications, a lot of work on this, how to how to actively
listen. These are skills and you can learn them.
And it's not easy to put aside your narrative, your story, your beliefs, your projections,
and deeply listen to what the other person is experiencing from place of love and compassion
without having to correct them or fix it or change it or have them even be right,
but just to validate them as a human being,
it's one of the most powerful unlocks that I found in relationship
and the most powerful tools to actually get present enough to do that.
But that's hard.
You have to know how to navigate your nervous system.
and be able to hold that discomfort in your nervous system as you're listening without interrupting,
without talking over, without correcting.
And it's really, it's one of the most important relationship skills that we were never taught
at school, but it works.
It's like a magic trick.
And there's a lot of resources out there.
I think people, you know, will put in the show notes around things like active listening
or the non-about communication work or crucial conversations and other tools.
but there really is a methodology to it.
And I think it's an incredible tool.
I'm also curious from your perspective,
you know, people are listening
and they understand the context
that I think people would agree
with mostly what you're saying.
But, you know, there's a question
of how do people actually start to acquire these tools?
What are the practical tools
who want to start building better relationships,
healing their relationship with themselves?
It's not immediately obvious to people how to do that.
I'm going to get to that,
but there's something that I want to say
about communication, repair,
because it's incredibly important, which is this.
We talked about the mind-creating stories.
So the first up is,
have I been, am I stuck in a story about my partner
that has made them into the anime?
And do, what are my rules that they have broken
that has made it so that I am so angry at them?
Your unconscious rules.
Yes, but now we have to make that,
and then we have to make them conscious, exactly.
like, oh, they're always late and I have a belief system that if someone's late for me, they don't
respect me. So I'm angry at them. When really, maybe from their perspective, they're always late
because it's not because they don't respect you. You know, so we always have these rules and we have to
have some rules that are sort of like our boundaries in a relationship. But sometimes we have so many
rules and we make it really easy for our partner to fail. Instead of it making,
it easy for our partner to win. And that's where we have to get very, very honest with
ourselves, which is, am I making it really easy for my partner to fail with me? And is this
something that I, is this a pattern that I have if I'm really honest in my relationships? Or for other
people. And you set up expectations and you set up all the expectations. They should behave like
this. They should do that. They didn't do this. They did do this. I don't like that. And then
you, in your mind, you're keeping a list, basically, a scorecard.
And then it's either expressed in the moment or it builds up over time and it gets
exploded in some crisis.
But that, that's kind of what usually is generating the challenge.
And sometimes you know what those are consciously, what those requirements are.
Like, I need my husband to put the toilet seat down or whatever, you know, but are I need
to like him to close the cupboards.
That's my thing.
I don't close the cupboards.
I like, I'm not good at that.
I'm learning.
I'm learning, but like, there's a, there's a fun of things that some men do, yeah.
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Whatever my partner's issue is with that, that might be coming from her sense of a need
for things to be in order or control
and it's different than how you experience things.
So, you know, there's a way to sort of understand
like your unconscious assumptions
about how things should be as the way,
not a way.
And I think we have to sort of relax a little bit
and go, wait a minute, there's a lot of ways to do things.
And if things are a really strong preference of mine,
like I want the bed made every morning,
I'm like, why make the bed?
You're just going to mess up at night.
She's like, I like to have the bed nice in the day.
I'm like, okay, great.
You know, like, I can do that.
So I make the bed every morning when I got out of bed after her.
And yeah, but it's, but it's, but it's those simple things that, like,
which you can actually start to kind of be conscious of,
and then if there are things that aren't in integrity with you,
like to me, it's like, I'm not out of integrity to myself.
I make the bed, but if I betrayer, I'm out of integrity to myself
and I do something to accommodate a thing that I don't think I should,
it doesn't feel good to me, then that's sort of a sort of a betrayal of yourself.
It's a betrayal of your partner because you're not telling them the truth that you feel.
It's hard to tell the truth.
And you talk about how in relationships, often there's these unsaid things that build up over time.
And in Buddhism, it's like they call it the dust on the mirror.
You know, the dust accumulates on the mirror.
How do you keep a clear mirror so you can see what's present?
So how do you help people navigate that?
Well, sort of just like what we were saying, you know, you said something really important,
which is that it's good to be in a, it's good to be accommodating in your relationship.
It's good to just do things for your partner.
it's good to be that kind of partner that but you don't obviously want to do things like
it's going to betray betray yourself and your integrity but like if something's really important
to your partner like and it's not something that by you doing it you're like betraying who you
are do it do it and if your partner is not actually doing it like can you just let it go like
So I'm going to make this very basic.
There is a lot that you're just going to have to tolerate in the person who you live with.
And can you have a more flexible, easygoing perspective and mindset when it comes to your relationship?
The people who do are happier in their relationships.
People who are extremely rigid are actually unhappier.
their relationships. And so that doesn't mean, again, we're not, you know, because I work with a lot of
people who do betray themselves and relationships and really, really horrendous stuff. But we're
not talking about that right now, you know. So I, you know, I was speaking to someone. She's,
she and her partner, they've been together for like 12 years and they have an amazing relationship.
And she said, you know, they're both very different.
And she said, I love her so much and I love the relationship so much that like doing things,
like going out of my way to do certain things that I know is just going to make her comfortable
doesn't feel like a sacrifice to me.
It feels like I am just adding energy and money to the emotional bank account of our relationship.
I mean, I think that's important.
I mean, there's a whole framework around, you know, making them deposits in your relationship.
your emotional bank account versus withdrawals, and how do you do more deposits than withdrawals?
You know, like, five to one or ten to one ratio in order to keep things good, right?
Yeah.
You just want to be a giver, and you don't want to be someone who just gives and gives and gives
with no boundaries, and you don't want to be someone who just gives because you want to get.
But you just, you know, this idea of generosity, like this emotional generosity,
people who are just emotionally generous generally make the best partners.
and those who are keeping score all the time
are usually a nightmare to be in a relationship with.
I think, I think, you know, what you're speaking to
is a deeper thing for people,
is this sort of sense of being out of control
and the need to be in control,
and the more out of control you are inside,
the more you want to control your external environment
to make you safe.
Yes.
But, you know, in relationships, that really backfires
because, you know, you're not actually in relationship
to the authentic moment,
your relationship to some past trauma
or hurt or belief.
And so that's a very important
sort of thing for people to understand.
And it's also, it's so hardwired
into people's nervous systems.
So it takes a lot of work to resolve that.
It's practice.
It's practice.
And sometimes when you're just like,
for some people, it's like a light switch
goes off in their mind.
They're like, wow, I never thought of it that way.
You know, I just,
and some people there's not just one way to have a relationship some people the best thing that
could ever happen to them is to be in a committed relationship but don't live together you know
not everyone is actually meant to live together my mother said when my stepfather retired she says
I married him for better or worse but not for lunch for lunch I love that exactly better or worse but
not for lunch yeah so figure out I love that that's great figure out what works for you and also like
Where I find that people really struggle is being able to differentiate what a true character defect is versus something that is just a little annoying, but it's worth it to tolerate because all the rest is good.
In terms of the nine truths you talk about in the book, you talk about these nine truths about love that are really important to think about.
and their hard truths.
Can you unpack that a little bit?
Because I think you basically present them as a life-changing toolkit
and things that if you follow these truths
and you kind of internalize them,
they can transform your relationships and your life.
So I thought about these nine truths for about four years
and really worked on them and thought about, like,
what would I want to leave behind as like the most important,
principles that we don't learn in school. And, you know, I certainly didn't learn them in the
therapy office and I just didn't learn them. And I wanted them to be, I wanted them to help people
regardless of what their relationship status was or is. You know, the first one, which is the title
of the book, which begins with you, means like it's just nothing changes in your life. You have to
be the change that you wish to see in your life. And that includes your love life. And it's not about,
you know the problem is just you it's just about nothing is going to change and we have to be
responsible for our choices and that um and it's not i wrote it in such a way it was important
for me to convey that this is not a slap on the wrist this was more like see you are actually
more in control than you think because to be out of control like i said is where people
suffer the most and that you are you can actually make
change it doesn't even matter how terrible your childhood was like you really can make change but you
have to understand these truths and so that's why I went into I thought about everything just also like
the power of the mind and I you know after coat because I worked with thousands of people like
in a very short period of time and because I really wanted to get incredibly skilled in my craft
and there were these common themes
and one of it is just like
I knew the nature of the mind
because I'd been studying the nature of the mind
for many years through the practice of yoga
and you reference the monkey mind
this idea that the mind is sort of a battlefield
and that if we don't
what's going to interfere with a relationship
more than anything else is what goes up and up
what goes on up in our minds
it's the way that we think
Yeah, always. Because if we're living more in our hearts, we're going to have a lot less relationship problems. But it's hard, you know, we've been hurt. We've been hurt. And, you know, there's also, it's also cultural. Like, we live in a society that's that really, that really encourages us to think more and feel less. And that's part of it. And then there was this, lust is not love and no one is coming to safety.
you and you have to make peace with your parents and these were um and actually you do have to
love yourself but i explain what loving yourself really actually means and these are the things
that are that are important and they're ongoing but they're meant to be a sort of guideline and i
to this day stand by those truths as as the most important ones powerful i think i want to just
double click on what you just said and that mostly the trouble and relationships comes from our mind
not our heart. And that many of us wall off our hearts to protect ourselves from abandonment,
pain, suffering, loss, whatever. And it's very hard to keep your heart open in, one, relationship
to your trauma, and two, in relationship to another person, which, you know, you might be projecting
things on from your past, or you might, you know, have an actually legitimate problem within the
moment. And so how do you keep your heart open in difficult times? And how do you maintain that,
when your brain is, the mind is the one
that's sort of hijacking the narrative.
Yeah, it's very difficult.
I think one is just to become aware
of the fact that you are afraid.
That you, you know,
because most people are on autopilot,
blocking their hearts, living in their heads.
It's, and we talked, you know,
at the very beginning, you know,
people on YouTube want to know about triggers,
if you can first just acknowledge,
I am afraid right now,
that underneath the angle,
underneath the trigger, underneath the pulling away, all of that, you are afraid.
And what you're afraid of is that you are not good enough and that because you're not a good
enough, because you're not good enough, you are somehow going to be deprived of love.
That is the fear that underlies all problems in relationships.
It does not matter who you are.
That is the fear that somehow you are inadequate and
not going to be good enough. And there is nothing like a romantic relationship where you love
someone and you're attached to someone that exposes that vulnerability and that makes us feel so
vulnerable. And so everyone has these sort of adaptive strategies of how they can not be abandoned
or how they cannot be engulfed by the relationship. You know, they're afraid they're going to
lose themselves. And so if they lose themselves and they're actually not going to,
to actually get the love that they want.
It all boils down to the one thing
that everybody wants, and that's love.
Period.
End of story. That is it.
Yeah, it's like we're all scared little kids
trying to get love and messing up a long way.
Yeah, and love is, you know, in the forum,
for some people, that's in the form of appreciation,
respect, understanding,
all these things are in the umbrella of love.
So first you just have to acknowledge,
which is what I start my book with,
everything boils down to,
If you peel away the onion, it's just, you are afraid.
So to start to get back into your heart, I mean, I've worked with a lot of people
who have been betrayed in relationships or they've been in some sort of abusive relationship
or they lost themselves or they're codependent, whatever it is, like those kind of problems.
And they have to kind of remove themselves from the equation and learn how to have like a greater
sense of self. And they have to protect their hearts because they've opened their hearts to all
the wrong people. But if we're just looking at the framework of a relationship, when people can
like get into their bodies and then the tears start to form, you know, and they were angry,
but the tears then start to form and the vulnerability starts to come out, that's when people
bond again. But what's keeping them from bonding is just like you did this and I don't like this
and we're so stuck in here and we're so closed off in the heart causes all the problems. And so how
do you go back into it? It begins with understanding, okay, I'm afraid right now. Like this is what's
going on with me right now. That's beautiful. That's really beautiful. I mean, I think
having that present moment awareness is something also. I think you're really talking. Also, I think you're really
about because none of this is possible if you don't have a relationship with your mind
that is at least aware and doesn't have to be healthy, but at least you go, oh, geez, I'm
having that stupid thought or, oh, I, you know, it's like, I'm sure everybody in life at some
point in their life has thought of killing themselves, you know, like, this is too hard, I can't
take it. And like, but you don't do it because you don't believe that. And you go, that's, you know,
like, you know, when it's, but on the little stuff, we just believe it. And so meditation,
yoga, different practices can really help to bring you into the present moment.
And it's something we don't really value in this culture.
It's something we're taught to do.
It's not something we learned how to do.
I mean, I was lucky.
I majored in Buddhism, and I would do 10-day meditation retreats when I was like 18 or 19 years old.
And I was like, I was like, wow, I can sit there for 10 days, 12 hours of meditation a day,
and I begin to watch the movie that was my mind.
And I was like, this is interesting.
And I don't have to, you know, I'm like, this is really interesting.
And it, you know, it didn't fix everything for me, but it really helped me to kind of create
this spaciousness between my thoughts and my, and my actions or my words.
So I was like, wait a minute, I don't have to, not all this is real or true.
And that's not something that's easy for people to sort of manage, like that, that pause that
that Victor Frankl talks about, like that moment where there's a space and it could be like a
millisecond because usually the thoughts gets translated into a feeling.
and to an action or a word in literally milliseconds.
So how do you just stretch that out a little bit
and not just say stupid shit?
By shifting your focus.
See, where focus goes, all the energy flows.
So from shifting your focus
from something you're angry about
to something you're grateful about,
from shifting your focus from I'm so angry with this person
to maybe they're really hurting right now.
Having compassion, empathy.
Having compassion.
Don't have too much empathy for the person who's harming you. But all that aside, yeah, compassion, empathy, the ability to put yourself, you know, there's that old saying, can you put yourself in someone else's shoes? Well, something that is profoundly impactful in relationships is, you know, sometimes I ask someone, I want you to literally step into this person's body, not literally, but as best as you can, step into this person's body, become them.
step into their nervous system start to breathe like them start to stand like them or sit like
them like them like become them and i have them close their eyes and really sort of mimic and say
and then i ask them what what does this person believe from their perspective you're them
you're not you and that's a very powerful exercise and empathy but also it's also about partnering
it's about i always say there's two there's two keys to a successful relationship
who you choose because most people don't choose the right partner and who you choose to be in that
relationship are you the right partner but a lot of people don't choose they choose the person who's
going to who just knows exactly how to poke every single button and uh you know you can work through
that and if you both are willing to really work through that and and grow spiritually emotionally
intellectually and just and just grow.
But for people who are like single
and like looking for a relationship,
don't go for the person
who pushes every single button.
Yeah, you got to fix your picker.
My friend wants to tell me.
Yeah, you got to fix the picker.
Exactly.
You know, because that's hard
because then NEMI's really getting
to know yourself
and understanding that probably the person
you're attracted to is often not the right person
because you're actually often acting out.
It's not true.
Well, for me, it's been true.
I've been picking the wrong people for a long time.
And I think that I began to break that pattern and fix my picker.
And that was really a huge revelation for me.
It was like, I'm choosing women who are X, Y, Z, because that's actually how my mother was.
And so once I unraveled that, I was no longer a prisoner to that.
That's what I meant by it.
Yes, that is very true.
But sometimes you choose the wrong person because you have a misguided under, there's so many different reasons why people choose the wrong
person. One is, is because, and do you want to go into this? Because I think this might be valuable
for your listener. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a good, yeah, it's a good place to stop because, you know,
if you're going to be in a healthy relationship, you have to know how to choose a right person.
Yeah, and I, and people love this. Go for it. Go for it. Okay. So if you are in a place like you were,
like, okay, my picker is off. First, I have to just say, yes, that could be true, but always,
always consider that it's never just the other person. It's also something that you've been doing
in relationships that needs to change.
Okay, so I just have to say that because it's very important.
But let's just say your picker is off.
You are just find yourself attracted to people who don't want you back or who don't
treat you well or just like a mismatch for you.
One thing is, like you said, I'm going after, like I have some unfinished business with my
mom and I am seeking out the familiar.
and this woman, these women who I'm choosing are actually very, very familiar, even though they're
incredibly wrong for me. So that's very, very true, and that is the theory of all psychologists,
and there's truth to it. It's not the whole story. If you're someone who values looks more than character,
then you're going to keep going for the people who might be really good looking,
but you're not taking any time to discover their character.
So that doesn't mean don't value looks, but it means if you want a relationship, you better value character.
So there's a lot of people who keep picking the wrong person because they do not value or understand the value of a person's character.
Then there are people who keep choosing the wrong person because they are not thinking about it.
what it actually takes to build a relationship for the long term, and that if you want to
build a relationship for the long term versus you want to just have like a fling, you need to
look for other things like alignment in core values, alignment in what a life well lived is,
alignment in, you know, this person really compliments me. They have strengths where I have
weaknesses and vice versa. So people don't think about these things. And so they keep repeating the
same pattern over and over again. Yeah, that's powerful. I wanted to add that because I think it's important.
No, it's important. Thank you. And I just want to say everybody, Jillian has a whole wealth of resources
out there. So this is just the tip of the iceberg. First, it begins with you. I think that's a very
important book you wrote that is out now. And I think everybody should go for sure get a copy. And they can
find you on social media, on your website, and lots of courses. So let me tell us how they find
you on social media, your website, and some of the courses you do so people can actually get
some resources. People are listening, well, that sounds good. Well, now what? And so what's the
now what? So the now what would be my podcast, Gillian on Love, because I take, I basically do
solo episodes. I don't really do interviews very much. So I go, I go, I do deep dives into sort of
these theories. The now what obviously is my book. It begins with you. My, my, my soul
social media all over social media. And then I, yeah, I have courses for heartbreak. I have courses
for choosing the right person. I have courses for couples. And I have a membership for women
called the conscious women for women who are really trying to break patterns and become their best
selves. You can all find this on my website. Great. And we'll put it all in the show notes.
Thank you again for coming on the podcast for your own discovery that's led to the insights that
could help many people in this one area, which many people find challenging.
In ways, it's even harder than health, you know, for a lot of people.
So I really, I think it's really one of the key aspects of health.
When you look at longevity, when you look at health metrics, having healthy relationships
and social connections is probably as important as what you eat or how much you're exercising
or how much you're sleep.
So it's really one of the core pillars of health and wellness.
And I really appreciate your work and what you've done.
And everybody definitely check out Julian's work.
and thank you again for doing what you do.
Oh, thank you, Mark.
Thank you for doing what you do,
and it's been a pleasure to talk to you today.
Gillian gave us so many tools
for improving our relationships.
What's the one idea you're going to try in your own life?
Let me know in the comments.
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Thank you so much again for tuning in.
We'll see you next week on the Dr. Heimann Show.
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